


A Million Points

by Lost_in_stars



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst, Billy and Max are siblings. I don't make the rules, Bisexual Eleven | Jane Hopper, Coming of age (I guess?), Declarations Of Love, F/F, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Girls Kissing, I will fucking die for them, Idiots in Love, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Lesbian Maxine "Max" Mayfield, Lesbians, M/M, No Smut, Star Gazing, Underage Smoking, i love El and Max so much, listen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-21
Updated: 2020-10-21
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:00:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 23,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27131474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lost_in_stars/pseuds/Lost_in_stars
Summary: The year is 1987, and Max thinks she might see Billy as a real brother instead of family forced together. She also thinks that when El smiles, she might be the most beautiful person that Max has ever seen.But she’s sixteen years old and trying to get to a million points on Dig Dug, so she doesn’t really have time to figure that out.
Relationships: Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington, Eleven | Jane Hopper/Maxine "Max" Mayfield, Eleven | Jane Hopper/Mike Wheeler, Jonathan Byers/Nancy Wheeler, Joyce Byers/Jim "Chief" Hopper, Maxine "Max" Mayfield/Lucas Sinclair, Robin Buckley/Heather Holloway, Will Byers/Mike Wheeler
Comments: 17
Kudos: 102





	A Million Points

**Author's Note:**

> I've been writing this for a while, and at one point I gave up on it. Like, full on gave up on it. But then I finally got off my ass and finished it, and here's the finished work!
> 
> It's been a while since I posted anything on here, but here. Have a fluffy Elmax fic <3
> 
> Anyway. Enjoy!

Max has never had a girl best friend before.

She supposes that it’s not surprising, because it’s not like Max is exactly _girly_ , but she’s not exactly a _tomboy_ either. She sits in between, and she’s okay with that.

There had been friends before, of course. There was Nate, back home – _California_ ; Max wonders when it’ll stop being home – and of course there is Lucas and Dustin and Will, and sure, maybe Mike even fits in a little there. But they’re _boys_. And the rest of the kids at school are assholes. Max can’t imagine herself gossiping with the popular girls who have yet to realise that they’re not that special, or even spending her time with anybody other than the group of nerds she’s become annoyingly attached to.

Then Eleven, El, Jane, showed up. Max tried hard to be nice to her, she really did. El is above her in the pack, more important to Mike, who is basically the leader of the party. El literally has _superpowers_ , and how the hell is Max supposed to beat that? She can do some tricks on a skateboard, is working her way up to a million points on _Dig Dug_ , but she can’t lift things with her mind or find people using only a picture and some static. So Max doesn’t try to outrank her, and El furiously gives her the cold shoulder whenever they are in the same room.

Max tried very hard to hate her too, but El wasn’t (still isn’t) exactly easy to dislike. She has curly brown hair and a winning smile, huge brown eyes and perfect, clear skin. El wears oversized flannels like the lesbians back home – _California, for fucks sake_ – and when she laughs, everybody in the world stops to listen. El is beautiful. Max can’t take her mind off her. Couldn’t back then, when they were thirteen, and she can’t now, at the dreamyage of sixteen.

_Everybody_ likes El. Even Max’s step brother Billy likes her. He’s turning twenty-one this year, and still a douchebag, but he’s become a lot nicer since Max threatened his crown jewels with a baseball bat. Max even likes him a little, and she thinks he likes her too. He still picks Max up from school even though he’s moved out. He checks Max for bruises and sometimes gives her money for the arcade. El, who doesn’t go to their school but can often be seen waiting outside for her friends, talks with Billy a lot. More than once, Max and the Party have walked out of school to find El sitting beside Billy and fiddling with his _Walkman_ while Billy smokes a cigarette and hides a smile.

Billy rents a room at Steve Harrington’s place. He works as a mechanic near Max’s school and nags her like a grandmother when she hangs out there to skip class. Max thinks Steve is rubbing off on him, the mother hen, but the last time she said that Billy hit his head on a car hood and spluttered “ _What_?” with eyes so wide that Max never brought it up again.

The year is 1987, and Max thinks she might see Billy as a real brother instead of family forced together. She also thinks that when El smiles, she might be the most beautiful person that Max has ever seen.

But she’s sixteen years old and trying to get to a million points on _Dig Dug_ , so she doesn’t really have time to figure _that_ out.

<><><><>

Hawkins _Palace Arcade_ always smells like candy, Coca Cola, and chips. It also smells like… So close… _Victory_! Max lets out a loud cheer as she reaches _nine-hundred thousand_ points on _Dig Dug_ and pumps her fist into the air. “ _Suck on that, bitches_!” It’s a little extreme, Max knows, but it took her two years of these shitty fucking controls to reach 900,000 and she has to admit, she’s proud. It beats her old record of 825,056 points that she earned in California when she was thirteen.

Dustin and Lucas let out shrieks of admiration while Mike rolls his eyes. Max watches El’s reaction from the corner of her eye, but El seems more interested in her rainbow lollipop than Max’s amazing high score. Max looks away, back at the screen, and tries not to think about how El could probably beat her simply by jerking her head.

The ending score is 900,117 points, and Max gets her own lollipop from Dustin as a reward. The Party walks out of the arcade later that night, still high off the score and the idea of Max one day beating the world record. Lucas says, “Oh, queen of _Dig Dug_ , do you want a ride home?” He jangles the keys for his shitty little car and Max laughs, shaking her head. Two members of the Party have cars and licenses, those two being Lucas and Dustin, but Max still gets rides home from Billy. She enjoys her time with him, actually, and looks forward to the screaming lyrics and Billy’s never-ending supply of cigarettes (“You gotta breathe in as you’re lighting it, you see? There, you got it, squirt.”).

As Lucas and Mike climb into Lucas’ car, and Dustin, El, and Will climb into Dustin’s, Max plonks herself down on the ground and sticks a cigarette in her mouth. She waves at her friends, feeling a secret pang of guilt when they all frown disapprovingly at her, due to her nicotine addiction. However, Max takes a long puff and watches them drive off. She will wait for Billy. He may threaten it, but Billy will never ditch her at night. He might be an hour late, but he always arrives, so Max sits outside the arcade and smokes a cigarette.

People pass by Max, and she gets funny looks as they do. Max understands, because she’s not their idea of a nerd who spends time at the arcade. She’s got bright red hair cut to just below her chin, wears spiky bracelets and has a _don’t fuck with me_ attitude, so she looks like the kind of girl who should be sitting outside of a party instead of an arcade.

Max takes another puff of her cigarette and throws the butt somewhere to her left. As she does that, the sound of Metallica approaches, louder than the car’s engine itself. Billy pulls into the parking lot, his Camaro looking odd amongst the much less flashy cars. He sees Max and skids to a stop in front of her. “Got caught up at work,” He explains when Max clambers into the car and tucks her cigarettes into her pocket.

“It’s whatever,” Max says truthfully, glaring playfully at him. “Just better not let it happen again.”

Billy grins and carefully places a cigarette between his lips as he speeds out of the car park. Max lights it for him, as he’s driving, then lights her own and blows the smoke out the open window.

It’s nights like this, when Metallica is roaring loudly, when she has a cigarette in her fingers and the wind blowing in her face, that Max loves Hawkins. She stares up at the stars that glitter in the sky, and wonders if El has ever learned the constellations like Max has.

Her thoughts are back to El. Max sighs heavily, sinking deeper into her seat, and lets her head fall back against the soft leather. Billy turns down the music and jabs her ribs. “What crawled up your ass?” He asks rudely. Max sighs again. Billy may be nicer now, but he’s still quite insensitive to feelings and emotions and all the bullshit. “Ah, fuck,” Billy mumbles, then turns the music off all together. It’s his equivalent of _I care about you_ , but Max still doesn’t feel better. “Is this about Jane again?”

“What?” Max stares over at Billy. He’s the only person who calls her Jane and believes that she was involved in a sex trafficking ring, so he refuses to call her Eleven or El at _all_. Billy mimics her in a high pitched voice, then repeats what he said.

“Is this about Jane again?”

“ _Again_?” She has never talked about El in front of Billy, not that she remembers, anyway.

“Yeah,” Billy throws his cigarette butt out the window. “You write about her in your diary all the time, dude.”

Max gapes. Her mind races with humiliation and embarrassment, and her entire face flushes beetroot. “I do not!” She protests, voice high pitched in a way that makes even _her_ cringe. She tries to think of a time Billy could read her diary. He lives on the other side of town and avoids her house like the plague, for fucks sake. _And_ it’s hidden under her bed. El is only mentioned, like, once or twice. Or a couple of hundred.

Billy throws his head back and cackles in that obnoxious way that makes Max want to punch him. “Holy shit!” He gasps for air, still laughing. “You should have seen your face! Shit, man, I think I’m actually going piss myself!”

“I– You–” Max finds herself at a loss for words. She lets out a frustrated scream, lands two livid punches on Billy’s arm, and jabs the on button for the radio so roughly that she feels it nearly crack under her fingers. Billy wipes at his eyes, apparently having started crying with laughter, and finally shuts up save for the occasional giggle.

“I don’t write about her in my diary,” Max grumbles a little bit later, and then Billy is laughing again because _“You actually have a diary?!”_ and her face turns even redder and she thinks that honestly, murder is excusable sometimes.

Billy doesn’t shut up the whole way home.

<><><><>

Max gets told off the next day because she’s late to class and figures that skateboarding is a quicker way. It turns out she was wrong, because she doesn’t make it to her homeroom and instead finds herself twenty minutes late to her French class. The French teacher tuts at her and grants her her second detention of the day. Max barely holds back her frustrated groan, and plonks into a seat beside Lucas, who snickers at her. “You missed Dustin correcting Mr. Kaminsky on his spelling of the word _prophylactic._ ”

“What was Mr. Kaminsky doing in our homeroom?”

“Dropping off some files or something, I don’t know. But Dustin decided it was a good idea to stand up and tell him that he spelled prophylactic wrong in the last sheet of homework he gave us.”

“I didn’t even notice that,” Max admits. “Was he embarrassed?”

“Dustin? No, he was quite proud of himself, actually. Mr. Kaminsky? Yeah, his face did that blotchy red thing again.”

Max giggles, which catches their teacher’s attention. “Something funny, Maxine?” She asks, making a face like she sucked a lemon as she peers over her large glasses at Max. Max shakes her head, not wanting to earn a third detention. Their teacher raises her eyebrows, her lemon-sucking face becoming even more prominent. “Are you sure?” Her eyes are pinched now, making her look a little bit like a squashed lemon herself.

“Positive,” Max answers, trying to ignore Lucas as he grins in the corner of her eye.

“Hm,” Lemon teacher narrows her eyes – how does she make them even smaller, what the _fuck_? – at Max, then turns and walks back to the front of the class. She taps at the blackboard, then starts ranting about the correct pronunciation of some French bullshit. Max, who doesn't give two shits about French, tilts her head back with a sigh.

By the time lunch has arrived, Max is barely keeping herself awake. She stomps out of the school grounds and sits on the pavement with another cigarette, watching as Will scribbles shyly with Mike next to him while Dustin and Lucas wrestle. Involuntary, Max smiles. _It’s nice to see everybody happy_ , she thinks. There hasn’t been another incident with what the Party calls The Upside Down since 1984, and Max is glad she doesn’t have to through the end of the world again. Once is enough for her, thank you very much. In another universe, maybe she had watched it happen again. Maybe her and El are friends, in that universe.

She blinks and pulls herself out of her head, disapproving of her habit of drifting around somewhere in her mind. Max instead watches as her friends approach her, still being idiots. Will has closed his sketch book, and Mike is carrying the smaller boy’s pencils for him. Lucas and Dustin, well, they’re still wrestling, but now closer. “What are you doing, you dumbasses?” She calls out, chuckling when they immediately burst into an argument of _“he started it!”_

The world is blissful peace for a few moments. Max allows the sunlight to wash over her, missing the warmth. It reminds her of California. Despite living in Hawkins for years now, she still misses Cali. She misses the beaches, and the skateboarding ramps, and the food, but she especially misses the sun. It bathed her in light, brought freckles to her face and kissed her skin with a light tan. Now, she is as pale as the snow that often falls in Hawkins. And the summer is hot, too hot, and makes her skin feel sticky.

She is tugged roughly out of her thoughts when a soft voice behind her says, “Hello.” Max jumps, dropping her cigarette and grazing her hand on the concrete as she hurriedly tries to get up. El is standing there, dressed in a big blue flannel and baggy jeans. Her hair, curly and down to her breasts, is piled on top of her head with pins to hold it in place. Still, several wisps of her light brown hair have escaped and are falling in front of her big, brown eyes. Max wants to tell her off, snap at her for scaring her, but she keeps her mouth shut. The backlash she would receive isn’t worth it – besides, Max can’t look away as El smiles around at them all. “I watched _The Never Ending Story_ ,” El continues, looking at Dustin. “And I liked the song.”

Max and Lucas, always jumping at the opportunity to tease Dustin about the time they caught him singing that song with his girlfriend Suzie, immediately burst into tune. Will giggles, Mike sighs, and Dustin turns bright red. El, however, looks confused. It is clear that she does not understand why Dustin finds it embarrassing to be caught singing, but nobody explains it to her.

“Turn around!” Lucas shrieks, grabbing Max’s hands.

“Look at what you see!” Max adds, stretching out the _e_ so much that it makes her throat hurt. She spins Lucas around the pavement with her, and they both fall about in laughter when Dustin hides his face in his hands.

When the song is over, Dustin has hidden in his car and El is listening to them sing with interest. “It’s a good song,” She says decidedly once Lucas and Max have finally finished. Lucas grins, tells her that he should become a singer, but Max stays silent. She always does when El is around.

Eventually Dustin emerges from his car, and is now gawking at the girls who are crowded around the steps. Lucas, apparently also very interested in fashion and the delightful low cut of Jennifer Hans’ new shirt, joins him in the gawking. Mike is still distracted by Will, apparently enough to not even notice the girl he is obsessed with arriving.

“Fire hazard,” El says suddenly, and Max blinks. She turns to look behind her, trying to figure out who El is talking to, but when she looks back El’s brown eyes are glaring right into her own blue ones. “Fire hazard,” El says again, pointing at the still lit cigarette on the ground, the one that Max threw when El startled her and had completely forgotten about.

“Oh,” Max shakily stamps on it, extinguishing the small red dot of flame. “Uh, sorry.” Their small conversation is drawn to an end when El nods, then brushes past her and taps Mike on the shoulder. It may have only been two words, repeated, but it’s the most El has spoken to Max since her three years of joining the party. What changed?

Eventually, lunch ends. The bell rings, shrill and unpleasant over the school grounds, and the pupils start to walk back to the building. Max watches El over her shoulder for as long as she can before it becomes weird. El sits down with a small kids book on the footpath, right where Max was sitting.

Max and Lucas skip fifth period together. They make funny faces at Mike through the window and duck every time the teacher glances over. They take off their shoes and skid in their socks down an abandoned hallway. Lucas falls over twice while Max laughs at him until they hear footsteps and have to run for it. Lucas holds her hand when they’re sprinting away, so she tugs him into the closest bathroom, presses him up against the wall, and kisses him dizzy.

Making out is nice. It makes Max feel wanted, and it even feels okay as well, because Lucas is a decent kisser. She lets him touch her waist underneath her shirt, but slaps his hand away when it starts to travel further up. They pull apart and Lucas says, breathless, “Do you want to get back together?”

Max shakes her head. “No.”

“Why?” Lucas frowns. Max yanks his hand out from under her shirt, then turns and fluffs her hair in the school bathroom mirror.

“Because I said so, stalker.” She watches in the mirror as his frown turns into a pout, then feels bad about snapping. She turns around, leaning her butt against the sink. “Look, we’re not right for each other,” She says honestly. “Come on, Lucas, you’re handsome. You used to be a nerd, sure, but look at you now! You’ve got muscles and stuff. People don’t think the bandanna is weird anymore. Try and date other people.” Everything Max says is the truth. Lucas is easily one of the strongest guys in their school even though he’s not the biggest. He stands out in a crowd, and not just because of his dark skin. He’s actually handsome, hot even.

So why doesn’t she like him? He’s super sweet, kind, and cute. He doesn’t pressure her into sex, doesn’t tell her that she would _look prettier in skirts_ or that she _needs to stop bossing people around_. He’s smart, funny, an amazing kisser. Everything that Max _should_ like. But for some reason, trying to date Lucas always feels weird. Just… Off. Like it’s not right.

“I think Jennifer Hans has a crush on you,” Max tries again.

That makes Lucas snort. “Are you kidding me? She’s too caught up fawning over your _brother_.”

“Gross!” Max snickers.

“Have you even _seen_ her? Like, whenever he passes the school she’s all,” Lucas puts on a high pitched voice and flutters his eyelashes at Max. “ _Oh, hey-y-y Billy! What’s th_ _at_ _? Why yes, this_ is _a new shirt! Hey, lets get married! Have my babies, Billy! Put your big, manly c_ – Ow!” Lucas is cut off as Max slaps his chest.

“Don’t finish that sentence,” Max warns, trying hard to suppress her giggles. She turns on the tap and runs a wad of toilet paper under it, making it wet and sticky. “Don’t tempt me, stalker. I _will_ throw this at you.”

“I wasn’t going to anyway!” Lucas laughs, ducking as Max throws the wet toilet paper at him. It splats onto the wall behind him and sticks there. “You think I want an image of your brother and Sophie? Ew!”

“Ew!” Max agrees, jabbing him in the stomach. It’s nice to play around again. She’s glad that their conversation about relationships is over.

Though Lucas _is_ a very good kisser.

<><><><>

Steve Harrington is standing outside the school next to Billy and El when Max and her friends are finally released from class. He is holding a bag with a stupid looking fish inside it. The little fish swims around in circles, unaware of it’s useless existence.

Max stops in front of her brother and together they stare as Steve talks wildly with his hands, the poor fish getting handed to Dustin, who gapes at it with wide eyes. “Why does Steve have a fish?” Max asks, looking up at Billy. Billy shrugs, watching Steve with a somewhat soft smile on his face. He tries hard to hide the little tilt of his lips, but fails when Steve accidentally crashes into one of his old teachers and says, _“Please don’t give me detention_.” At that, everybody laughs, and Steve turns pink, says that he still has nightmares about high school teachers.

Steve sits in the front with Billy. He turns around and asks Max how school was, like she’s still thirteen. She raises her eyebrows at him, and Steve turns right back around. The fish is in the back seat next to her, and when it nearly falls off the edge of the seat at a particularly sharp corner, Steve asks Max _very nicely_ can she put Steve Junior on her lap, please? She obeys, and soon the fish – _Steve Jr_ – is staring at her crotch and swimming delightfully around it’s bag. By the third stoplight, Max has had enough, and thrusts the bag onto Steve’s crotch instead. _His_ fish, _he_ can deal with the little pervert.

The day is warm, so when Max is dropped off she decides not to go inside quite yet. Instead, she dumps her backpack down by the front door and skateboards out onto the empty street. Her mother sits on the front porch, clapping when she does a flip and acting like she knows what that flip is called. It has to stop when her step-father Neil comes home, because he doesn’t like it when Max skateboards on the street and she doesn’t want to hear another rant about Billy teaching her all these bad habits.

She locks herself in her room and listens to _Kiss_. Her homework taunts her from her desk, but Max instead wraps herself up under her quilt and reads _Wonder Woman_.

But her mind can’t stay focused. Instead, it starts to drift to the thought of El in her flannel, El with her hair tied up, El with her smile and big eyes. Max drops her comic and runs her hand across her freckled face. “Fuck,” She whispers, and presses her face into the pillow. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

El dances in her mind, her eyes big and full of joy. She is wearing a dress, pink with ruffles. Her socks are pulled up to her knees, her face spread into a smile. Max sits up and groans, not allowing her mind to wander any further.

What is it about El that fascinates her so? She tells herself it’s the powers, the desire to be her friend, but still wonders if friends think about how beautiful they would look in a dress, in the moonlight. Do friends think about how pink her lips are, how big her eyes are? Do friends think about each other like that?

There is a knock on the door. Neil’s loud voice rings through the house. “Maxine! Phone!”

Max panics for a second. Who is calling her? The Party has been told to never call her house, though they have never been told why. Max doesn’t want to say, _it’s because my step-dad will hunt down my brother, accuse him of doing stuff to me, making me a lesbian who only hangs out with boys. It’s because Neil won’t hit me, but Billy is twenty and still fair game, and he’s still scared of Neil. It’s because if he finds out who my friends are, there will be hell to pay._ She gets up, opens the door quietly, and takes the cordless phone out of Neil’s hand. “Thanks,” She says, smiling sweetly at him. Neil likes it when she’s sweet. It was Billy who taught her that, told her that he always wanted a cute little baby girl and got Billy instead. He used to say, _“If he ever hits you, Max, you come straight to me, got it?”_

She holds the phone to her ear and closes the door. “Hello?” She says, feeling shaky.

But then a familiar, calming voice speaks. “Max,” El says, immediately causing Max’s heart to beat a million times faster. Then, “She has answered,” And the phone is handed to Lucas.

Max listens to him drag on and on about some meeting at Steve’s house, agrees to be there in an hour. Then it’s Billy on the phone, who says, “ _Listen, I kind of… Uh, I forgot Harrington’s birthday. It’s tomorrow. He’s turning twenty-two and we can’t have a party tomorrow because his parents are apparently coming down_ ,” Max can practically hear the eye roll. She feels tempted to roll her eyes as well – Steve’s parents say that every birthday, Christmas, any holiday. And they never do come back. But Steve still keeps his hopes up, and it’s honestly heartbreaking. “ _So, not like I fucking care, but Harrington will_ never _shut up about it if I don’t throw him a party, so. I’m inviting all of you little nerds over, Buckley, Byers and Wheeler as well. You up for it, dork_?”

“Come pick me up,” Max replies. She’s not missing Steve’s birthday party.

Maybe that’s why Steve got a fish. It was an early birthday present.

<><><><>

When Billy arrives, Neil has spotted him through the window and is bitching to Max’s mother about his no-good faggot son. Max slips past them and closes the door with a quiet _click_. Inside, Neil shouts, “I should have sent him with his slut of a mother!”

Max clambers into the car, being as careful as possible. Billy has tensed up and is tapping his fingers against the steering wheel as Neil opens the door and shouts at him to get off his property, despite the fact that Billy is parked across the street and two houses down. The radio is roaring loudly, and Max doesn’t make any conversation until Billy has left skid marks on the road and is speeding away.

“So you forgot his birthday, huh?” Max glances at the speedometer and raises her eyebrows when she sees that they’re doing thirty miles over the speed limit.

“Well, he doesn’t keep a fucking calendar or anything, just expects people to remember,” Billy grumbles. “The dumbass is lucky I lo–” Billy cuts himself off and clenches his jaw. “Well. He’s lucky he rents to me pretty cheap, or I would have told him to suck it up.”

Billy has been living with Steve for the past two years and Max has yet to see his bedroom. She suspects it’s one of the rooms upstairs with the doors always closed. However, Billy’s stuff is strewn around _Steve’s_ bedroom like he owns the place. There’s even _Motley Crue_ posters up on the wall, and Steve despises _Motley Crue_. The curtains have changed from plaid (gross) to a faded black with red scraps of fabric sewn on to cover the holes, and Max is pretty sure she remembers those curtains from Billy’s room back home – _fuck_ – California. Whatever. Max is a busy girl; she doesn’t have time to figure out patched curtains or secret bedrooms or posters.

The party is fun, Max has to admit, though pretty dorky. Balloons are everywhere, streamers are thrown all over the house, and there’s even a stupid banner that reads _HAPPY BIRTHDAY KING STEVE_. The cake, set upon the table next to the fish Steve bought, is chocolate with bright pink icing. Music is playing loudly, and Max can see Billy itching to change the song from _Jitterbug_ to, well, literally anything else.

There are several people already there, those people being Hopper, Joyce, Will, Lucas, Dustin, Jonathan, Nancy, and Robin. Mike, El and Steve have yet to show up. Max wonders how El talked to her on the phone, and Billy explains that she’s gone home to change into a dress because she wants to look nice. Mike has apparently gone with her, and that makes Max itch all over. She doesn’t want to think about what they’re probably doing right now.

Eventually Steve arrives. Everybody shouts _surprise_ and he swears enough to scare a sailor. But once Steve gets over his shock, he’s hugging everybody and saying thank you, saying that he really appreciates it. Billy smokes in the corner, frowning until Steve comes to a stop in front of him. Max looks away, then, because Billy is doing those eyes that he does when he’s thinking of something dirty and she doesn’t want to hear what he has to say.

She looks over at the door instead, and is distracted when it’s thrown open. Mike rushes in. “I’m so sorry we’re late!” He declares to the room. “The car wouldn’t start and–” Max doesn’t listen to what he has to say next, because El has entered the house as well, and…

Fuck.

Last time Max saw El at a party, it was the Snowball of ‘84. El was wearing a dress from the sixties, had her hair done up all pretty, wore a pink sash around her middle. And before that, when Max first met her, El looked like somebody from back home… From California. Black on black, dark eye shadow with her hair slicked back.

No matter what El wears, she still manages to look sweet in it. From princess to punk, from fatigue to farmer, El looks gorgeous. Max has seen her wearing her fair share of outfits over the years, but sometimes it just… Well, sometimes it just hits her. El is beautiful. She’s like a princess, one waiting for her knight to save her. Max tries to tell herself she’s jealous, and that’s why she thinks about this kind of stuff. But Max can’t imagine getting saved by a knight or a handsome prince, nor can she imagine saving someone. She thinks that she’s not really the hero of the story, merely the chapter filler.

But El. El, she’s a princess. _Look at her_ , Max thinks as El walks past wearing a fluttery white shirt with tiny blue roses stitched onto it. She’s wearing a blue skirt to match the flowers, has the shirt tucked into her belt. The skirt is shorter at the front, longer at the back. Her hair is still piled on top of her head like it was earlier, but now it has some light blue hair clips in it as well. Max has to pull her eyes away, remind herself that staring won’t do her any favours.

But it’s just because she’s jealous.

_She’s just jealous, okay?_

Max feels movement beside her and jumps, turning to stare at Will Byers. As far as friendship goes, her and Will definitely get along more than her and Mike do. However, it can be a little awkward sometimes, as Will is anxious about most things he says and Max isn’t exactly the greatest at reassuring people. She smiles at him. “Hi,” She greets warmly. Will smiles at her shyly.

“That’s Nancy’s outfit,” He tells her, and Max follows his gaze to where it’s directed towards Eleven. The girl is dancing with Steve and Mike, her skirt swishing around her knees like waves in an ocean. Max nods, smiles.

“Cool.”

“She spent a very long time picking it out,” Will speaks again, and this time Max finds herself getting a little confused by his words. Why should she care?

“Cool?” She says again, wincing when it sounds suspicious. “Do you...” She tries to figure out a reason why Will would be telling her this. “Do you have a crush on her or something?” Huh. She always pinned Will for being gay, but one never ceases, right?

Will wrinkles his nose distastefully. “My mother and her adoptive dad are dating,” He tells Max. “She’s basically like my sister. So no, I don’t have a crush on her. Sometimes I think I don’t even like g–” Will goes quiet, and Max wants to smirk. _One never ceases, indeed_. She has to hold herself back from pressuring Will into finishing his sentence. Max is naturally bossy – it’s a trait she was born with and honestly has no clue where she got it from. Billy used to say that her mother Susan had a spine like a wet noodle and that her dad was everyone’s bitch. She used to scream at him when he said that. She doesn’t anymore, because now Billy has learned to shut his mouth. Kind of.

(Billy is currently on his sixth beer and challenging Hopper to an arm wrestle. “Come on, tough guy!” He taunts. “Betcha I can win. Betcha a _million_ dollars!”

Billy likes to act like he’s stronger than he really is when he’s drunk. Steve pats him on the shoulder and says affectionately, “Yes, Billy, we all know you can win. Lets go drink some water, hm?”)

Max realises that the conversation between her and Will has gone dead and hastily tries to bring it back to life. “So, D&D on Friday, right?” Will perks up immediately, nodding his head like an excited puppy. Max has to hold back a smile. These days, they don’t really play Dungeons and Dragons much anymore. Mike is infatuated with his girlfriend and Lucas is often trying to figure out why Max broke up with him. Dustin and Will still adore the game, though, and Max hates to admit it but she finds it fun too.

Though _Dig Dug_ is more her cup of _I have no social life, help me_ tea.

The pair of them talk about Dungeons and Dragons for a little while before Joyce announces that it’s time to cut the cake. “Gather round, kiddos!” She calls out. “ _Cake_!”

“Cake!” Will exclaims excitedly. Max grins and they race to the living room, where Robin Buckley and Billy are very obviously conspiring about shoving Steve’s face into the cake. Steve, unaware of his friends and their sabotage against him, wanders into the room with a dorky smile on his face. Billy and Robin smirk at each other and join everybody else at the table.

Steve Jr the fish makes bubbles in his water and looks horrified when Robin shoves the paper plate full of chocolate cake into Steve Senior’s face. Everybody cheers and Steve starts swearing again, even more so when Billy grabs a handful of icing, clings himself to Steve’s back, and rubs it into his famous hair.

Everybody is laughing. Max can feel the delight bouncing around the room. She looks at the people around her, aware that her usually guarded face is turning soft with adoration. Billy and Steve, first, then to Hopper. Joyce is next, then Dustin, Lucas, Mike, Will, Nancy, Robin, Jonathan, and finally… Finally, she shifts her gaze to El and is surprised to find that El is looking right back at her.

El’s lips tilt upwards into something that could be a smile and Max wants to smile back, she really does, but then people are singing and dancing and stepping in front of her and Eleven Jane Hopper and her beautiful almost smile have been hidden by the crowd.

<><><><>

Max is dropped back home at roughly ten. She’s all giddy and giggly from the party, still high off Steve with icing in his hair and Will with his little strangeness and El… With her almost smile. Max waves goodbye to Billy, who seems very distracted and in a big hurry to get back home, and walks up the footpath to her house.

Neil and her mother have fallen asleep on the couch when Max enters. There is a blanket on the floor and she picks it up, meaning to tuck it tightly around the two of them and then head to bed herself. But she thinks about Neil calling Billy a faggot, about her mother not doing anything. She thinks about Billy curled up on the floor, shaking as Neil spits on him, kicks him, unaware that Max can see. She thinks about how scared Billy was the day he left, how he hugged Max so tightly and whispered that he wouldn’t leave Hawkins, not until she’s ready to go as well. She thinks about Billy becoming her brother through trauma and tears and unwanted bonding.

So she leaves the blanket on the floor.

Her bed is calling to her when Max opens her bedroom door. The blankets are ruffled from where she was curled up this afternoon. Max takes off her shirt and lets it fall to the floor, then unclips her bra and lets it do the same. As she unbuckles her belt, she walks around her room shirtless, trying to find her pyjamas. She’s managed to undo the buckle and still hasn't found them, so she wriggles out of her jeans and is left standing in the middle of the bedroom in nothing but her underwear, trying to figure out where she left her pyjamas.

A knock on the window startles her. Max jumps, swears loudly, then grabs the closest thing she can find, which happens to be her quilt. She wraps it tightly around herself and carefully pulls the curtain back to reveal… El?

“Hello,” El says. She’s still dressed in her clothes from Steve’s party and seems not even the slightest bit anxious about showing up at Max’s house unannounced.

“Fuck,” Max says without meaning to, then clears her throat. “Uh, hi El. What’s up?” The blanket is pulled tighter around her.

“Can we talk?” El asks, her big, brown eyes looking up at Max. “Please?”

Max’s mind races with a million thoughts. _Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!_ Why does El want to speak with her? Has she done something wrong? Is she going to get killed? Is she getting kicked out of the Party?

“Uh, sure,” Max answers, offering her a weak smile. “C-can I… Get dressed first?”

“Yes,” El nods, turning her back. “I’ll let you get dressed.”

Max lets the curtains fall back into place and throws her blanket onto her bed. She grabs her _Wonder Woman_ shirt and tugs it on, not bothering to replace her bra. She shoves cigarettes into her hoodie pocket, tugs on a pair of jeans, then reopens the curtains. El is still standing there, but is now playing with a blade of grass. Max slides carefully out of her window with her skateboard tucked under her arm, then lands on the wet green grass next to El.

When she looks up, she spots a bike next to the other girl. It’s old, but clearly well loved, as there’s not a speck of dirt on it. The handlebars, which have pink streamers on them, are polished to perfection. The seat has recently been mended, Max can see, because the stitches have yet to fade into the leather over time. It’s red, like poppies and Billy’s old shirts and Max’s hair. She loves it.

“Nice bike,” Max manages to say. She grips her skateboard tighter and adjusts the strap of her backpack, something she had grabbed as an afterthought. “Where are we going, then?”

“To talk,” El answers, as if that explains everything, then gets on her bike. Max blinks, still unsure why she is about to follow this girl off into the darkness, but she doesn’t have time to reconsider because El is racing down the small hill of Max’s yard, and Max is chasing after her.

She catches up in no time. Soon they are riding together, avoiding the potholes and other random obstacles as the wind flies through their hair. The air smells sweet, like honey, and Max takes a deep breath in. The world is silent, as if holding it’s breath as it watches Maxine Mayfield and Eleven Jane Hopper ride alone through a small town in the middle of nowhere.

The two of them ride without a word exchanged for a long while before Max spots an upcoming concrete staircase, the kind with a bar in the middle that you can hold onto. Without thinking, she’s speeding up, faster, faster, faster. El, apparently no longer following, stops beside a pole. Max doesn’t look back to check if she’s watching.

The metal bar glints at her in the moonlight. It’s threatening, the kind of thing Max would usually only do when there’s nobody around to see her fall. But it’s close and there’s no turning back down, so Max squeezes her eyes shut and kicks the board up.

For a second, there is nothing but air and silence around her. Max feels her heart speed up, wants to scream, but then… Then there’s the familiar grinding and vibration of the bar. Max looks down to find she is skating down the bar, a trick she’s only managed to do once or twice.

It only lasts a moment or two. But by the time Max has jumped off the bar and is standing at the bottom of the stairs, her heart is beating with excitement. She whoops, punches her fist into the air, and looks up at El with her eyebrows raised. _What do you think about_ that _, huh?_ Her mind sneers. El smiles, as if she can read Max’s mind (can she?) before she walks her bike down the staircase very slowly. “Very good,” El says, her smile still very real on her face. Max feels her breath hitch, and tucks her hair behind her ear, giggling.

“Thanks.” She can’t look El in the eyes. She doesn’t know why – she’s done it a million times before, looking at El kindly until El glares at her and Max looks away. But now, in the middle of the night with only the moon as their torch, Max cannot bring herself to look up. Cannot bring herself to get glared at by El again. To get rejected, shut down.

“You looked like you were flying,” El continues, her voice quiet. “Like I made Mike fly. Or like the fairies in the book I’m reading. You looked like a fairy. And your hair was made of fire.”

Max feels her face heat up. She involuntarily feels hysterical laughter bubbling up inside. Just a few hours ago, Max was sitting in the car park while El ignored in favour of her boyfriend. Now, El is telling her that she looked like a fairy with hair made of flames. It’s ridiculous, so ridiculous, and what’s even worse is that fact that Max feels more happy then she has in nearly a year. “Thanks,” She repeats. Her voice cracks a little.

“I would like to speak with you about something,” El says bluntly, because apparently nobody has taught her soft conversation transitions. “I am sorry that I interrupted you while you were getting dressed.” Max blushes even redder and zips up her hoodie, now regretting the fact that she didn’t wear a bra. El continues. “Can we talk somewhere else? I know a good place.”

“Yeah,” Max agrees. “Uh, yeah, of course.”

<><><><>

The ‘good place’ turns out to be the quarry. Max has been up here many times, sometimes to make out with Lucas, sometimes to smoke cigarettes with Billy, but mostly just to scream and kick rocks off the cliff. It’s an effort to get to the top of the quarry without a car – the walk is steep, unforgiving. But both Max and El are reasonably fit, so after an hour of a silence that drives Max insane, they finally get to the top.

The edge of the cliff overlooking the water is a place that Max has always wanted to dive off. Logically, she knows it’s a terrible idea, because at that height water turns into concrete and Max would be fucking _dead_. However, illogically, she thinks it would be like flying. Flying through the air. She wants to build a ramp, skate off it and fly through the sky like a bird.

_Or a fairy with hair made of flames._

El leans her beloved bike up against a big rock, then climbs up said rock and plonks herself down. Max stares for a moment before she sets her skateboard down on the pebbles and sits on that instead, unsure if El would allow her to sit so close to her.

“This thing you wanted to speak about?” Max speaks first, her voice breaking the quiet of the world around them. El nods, smiles, and crosses her legs.

“It’s about feelings,” She says. “And friends. And how I was mean to you because I was angry at Mike for thinking about you instead of me.”

Max blinks in surprise. “He thought about… Me?” Disgust fills her body, and she has the overwhelming desire to lean over the edge of the quarry and retch her guts out. In what way did he _think_ about her? Oh, god. Max squeezes her eyes shut tightly, unable to clear her mind of the image of Mike Wheeler… Well… Doing _that_ while thinking about her face. “Jesus Christ,” She mumbles, rubbing her hands over her face.

“Yes, he thought about you.” El seems unbothered by Max’s uncomfortable actions. “He thought about replacing me in the party with you. And I was angry about that, because I am Mike’s friend – girlfriend – and I did not want him to leave, because we were supposed to go to the Snowball together.”

_Oh, she meant…_ “Fuck, El, I thought you meant about me while...” Max struggles to find the words to describe what she believed for a few moments. “You know...”

El tilts her head to the side. “No?”

“You know...” Max can’t find a place to put her hands, feels her face flush red with embarrassment. “Touching…?”

“No?”

_This girl is seventeen_ , Max thinks, feeling a pang of pity at El’s confused look. _And nobody ever taught her about this kind of stuff? Jesus Christ, Mike, I’m going to kill you. She can’t stay innocent forever. She’s seventeen, she should_ know _about sex_. “Nothing. Never mind.” It’s eleven pm and Max is sitting with a girl who was kept in a lab until the age of twelve. A girl whose name is Eleven. A girl who used to have a shaved head and can move things with her mind and her eyes the colour of chocolate and– _Fuck_. “Go on. You were saying?”

El’s hair reflects the moonlight. It’s tied in two loose braids. If Max is being honest, she doesn’t like El’s hair being long. When she first met her, it was cut like a boy’s. Curly, easy to run hands through. El’s hair is probably a hassle now – Max knows all about long hair and the struggles of it. El shifts, probably trying to get more comfortable, and stares at Max. “I would like to be friends.”

_I would like to be friends_. Max doesn’t know how long she has been waiting for El to say those words. She’s spent so long imagining having Eleven has a friend. They can do dumb stuff like go shopping at the mall and bitch talk the boys and have sleepovers and…

Max feels a smile spread onto her face. “I’d really like that, El.”

<><><><>

Once again, she is surrounded by the familiar smell of the arcade. Max narrows her eyes, jabs the buttons and moves the joystick at lightning fast speed. Her tiny little character moves around the _Dig Dug_ screen even quicker, and she cannot help sticking her tongue out a little because of how much she is focusing. Her foot, covered by her bright red sneaker, is crunching into some popcorn. Max does not move – she cannot think about that now, not when she is so close.

The record has been beaten again, barely a week after Max beat it last time (barely four days since her and El have officially become friends), yet that’s not her focus. Her focus is the fact that she’s on 928,966 points. _This could be the day_ , she thinks. _This could be the day I get to one million!_

Roughly 70,000 more points to go, but Max is closer to a million than she ever has been in her entire life. Maybe El is her lucky charm. She wants to glance back at her, grin cheekily, but she cannot move. All that matters is this fucking score.

Max has just reached 929,000 points when somebody shoves past them all, knocking Max into her machine and ultimately losing her the game. Everybody swears. Max kicks the machine, lets out a scream of rage, then turns to face the person who had run into her. “Asshole!” She snaps at Keith, who is nearly twenty-one and still hanging around the arcade with Cheeto dust on his fingers. “You fucking _prick_ , Keith! What is wrong with you?!”

“It was an accident,” Keith scoffs. He’s been a dick to the Party ever since Nancy and Jonathan announced their relationship, which was _three fucking years ago_. And Max has never really forgiven him for tricking her into going into the back to meet up with Lucas.

“Bullshit!”

“You never would have won anyway,” Keith continues. “You’re a _girl_. You’re only good for making sandwiches. Or giving me a blowjob while _I_ win.” Barely a second after the sentence has left Keith’s mouth, his bag of Cheetos explodes into a cloud of orange dust. Max feels disgusted, as if her skin is crawling. _Stop,_ she thinks, wanting to scream. _Stop, stop, stop. I’m not a toy. I’m not a fucking toy!_

The arcade is silent for a second. Max stares at her reflection in the screen as Keith stutters in shock, and her eyes meet El’s. It’s obvious what the other girl is thinking as she wipes a small drop of blood from her nose. _Just give me the word, I can hurt him. Just say the word, Max._ The situation isn’t enough to kill, or really hurt, somebody over, but Max wants to so bad. She hates how close Keith has become recently, despite being nearly old enough to drink and smoke when Max isn’t even of legal age to move out. He’s been more and more creepy and the thought of him alone is enough to put Max off her meal for the day.

“You’re disgusting,” Max hisses, tearing her eyes away from El’s and instead staring up at Keith. “You know that? You’re a disgusting creep, and you’re never going to get _anywhere_ in life. Nancy will never date you, _I_ will never date you, no girl will ever fucking date you!”

“You’re disgusting,” Another voice pipes up. El. “You’re gross. Nobody likes you.”

It’s strange to hear such nasty sentences coming out of the usually nice El’s mouth. If she doesn’t like somebody, she usually gives them the silent treatment, which Max is still recovering from. Mike, Dustin, Lucas and Will look shocked at El’s new hatred, but Max is satisfied.

Since they’ve become friends, they haven’t really had much time to hang out. The night they spoke was the only time that Max and El got to be alone. The rest of the time, Mike is usually whisking her away to show her some new thing of great importance (because he hates Max) or Lucas is showing Max his new comic book, action figure, or simply wants to spend time with her. So Max and El, despite being friends now, haven’t really changed much. All that has changed is that now El smiles at her, and Max _doesn’t_ think about those smiles for the rest of her day. She _doesn’t_.

“What the fuck is going on?” Somebody says then, and the entire arcade swivels to stare at the two men standing in the doorway. One of them is a figure who is familiar at the arcade, but never inside it. Billy has a cigarette tucked behind his ear and another one between his lips, apparently never getting around to light it. Beside him is Chief Jim Hopper, huge, bear arms crossed over his chest. Hopper, apparently being the one who spoke, glares around at everybody before he continues. “I heard what you said, kid,” He growls, staring directly at Keith. “That girl is a minor. If I hear you making those kind of comments again, I’m chucking your ass in jail so fast you won’t even be able to cry for your mama. Got that?”

Keith nods, eyes growing as large as an owl’s. Billy, still standing beside Hopper (and looking hilariously small next to him, as most people do), shoves his cigarette into Hopper’s hands and stomps inside. There is a big purple bruise on the left side of his face, joined with a little bleeding cut that looks like it could have been made by a ring. “Max,” He snaps. “Lets go before I punch this guy’s face in.”

Max obeys. She leans down and grabs her backpack, throws it onto her shoulder, then waves goodbye at her friends. _Her friends_. Lucas grins something a mixture of fear and cheekiness, Will waves back, Dustin sticks his tongue out at her, Mike scowls, and El… El smiles. Max doesn’t think she’ll ever get used to those smiles directed at her. Bright enough to light up a sunless world. Beautiful enough to be on the front of a magazine. Gorgeous enough to haunt somebody’s dreams for the rest of their life. “Bye,” Max whispers, specifically to El.

She then punches Keith in the stomach and walks out of the arcade.

The drive home is silent. Billy doesn’t try to speak to her, and she doesn’t try to speak to him. The bruise is not talked about, nor is Max’s constant tapping of her feet or how she scratches her skin anxiously. They just sit, watching the road, and do not speak. It is the best thing Max could have asked for at this moment, because she can feel tears pricking at her eyes.

To make her day even worse, Neil is sitting outside with her mother when she arrives home. Billy visibly grips the steering wheel even tighter looks away, apparently not wanting to catch his father’s eye. Max gets out of the car and stomps inside. She ignores her mother’s, _“_ Maxine, what happened?” and instead storms off into her bedroom. She slams her bedroom door hard enough to make the house shake, crawls under her blankets, and screams into her pillow.

Max doesn’t surface from her bedroom until she smells dinner, which makes her follow the delightful aroma all the way to the dining room. Her mother usually tuts at her, says a girl her age should eat less, but this time the table is silent. Neil doesn’t even try to make conversation like he usually does, and all that can be heard is the awkward scraping of knives and forks against dinner plates. After dinner, Lucas calls her over the Walkie and they talk for a while. Max shuts herself back in her bedroom and rants about Keith, feminism, and their culture for over an hour before Lucas says, “Uh, I agree with you?” Then they go back to talking about video games and _Dig Dug_ records and D&D campaigns and if Max is being honest, she thinks that Lucas might be her best friend. That night, she goes to sleep feeling much more peaceful.

Max sleeps blissfully for about five hours before she wakes up to a knock on her window. She sleepily rubs her eyes and brushes her hair out of her eyes, then pulls on a dressing gown and opens the curtains. What she sees makes her want to cry out of happiness.

El, Lucas and Dustin are standing in her yard, their bikes behind them. They wear matching smiles, and the message is clear. _Wanna sneak out?_ Max smiles back, feeling her eyes water, then yanks the curtain closed. Within two minutes she is dressed and ready, and climbs out of the window with the grace of a swan. Nobody speaks until they’re halfway down the street, skating away from Max’s house at a great speed.

“You seemed depressed,” Dustin states once they’re out of earshot. “We figure we could, you know, come over and cheer you up.”

“Thank you,” Max mumbles, skating along beside her three friends, who are going slower on their bikes so she can keep up. The wind blows the tie of Lucas’ bandanna out behind him like two tiny little flags flapping in the wind. Dustin, who has long since mastered the technique of riding a bike with a hat on, points it out and everybody laughs. El’s hair has been tied back in a braid again, something that Max thinks she looks adorable in. Max herself has her hair pulled back into two unwanted dreadlocks, knotted at the back of her head and hastily tied with a scrunchie. They are all in their pyjamas at least, so Max doesn’t feel _too_ weird in her _Superman_ shirt and old yellow shorts.

The four of them end up sitting in the park. Lucas tries a cigarette, coughs so hard that Max can feel tears prick at her eyes with laughter. Dustin tells them about the likelihoods of getting lung cancer, blah, blah, _blah_. And El? Well, she sits next to Max, closer than they ever have been, and doesn’t cough even a little when the wind blows all of Max’s smoke into El’s face.

Eventually Dustin ends up saying something that pisses Lucas off, and the two boys start wrestling in the sandpit. Max rolls her eyes and stands up, dusting herself off. She offers her hand to El. “Wanna go on the swings?” She offers, wondering if El has ever actually been on the swings. It turns out El has, however, because she grab’s Max’s hand and drags her over to the swing set.

The boys are barely visible in the dim light of the moon, but Max finds she doesn’t care. All that matters is that El and her have sat down on a swing each, but El still hasn’t let go of her hand and she’s grinning at Max sweetly. Max really needs to stop gawking at her. She pulls away from El’s hand herself and kicks herself off the ground.

Together they reach out to touch the sky. El is giggling madly and Max has become competitive and wants to swing higher than El can, but it’s perfect. Their hands grasp over stars that they don’t reach and the cold wind stings at Max’s legs, giving her goosebumps. But it’s perfect. It’s so perfect.

Max tears her eyes away from the sky and lets her swing slowly come to a stop. El does the same, still staring up at the constellations and moon. The stars reflect in El’s chocolate brown eyes, making them sparkle golden. Her lips are spread into a soft smile, and Max finds her heart beating faster. It aches and aches and… What does that mean? Why does it ache with desire?

“Has anybody ever taught you about stars?” Max whispers before she can help herself. El turns, nodding at her.

“Yes. Dustin says they’re made of helium and hydrogen and–”

Max cuts her off before she can continue. “No, I mean like the constellations.”

“Constellations?”

“Yeah,” Max breathes, still caught up by the beauty of El’s eyes. “They’re like stories in the sky. Written in the stars.”

“I can read lots of words,” El states, redirecting her gaze towards the universe up above. The wind softly blows the escaped wisps of hair back. “But I can’t read this. It looks hard to read.”

“No, no, it’s like… It’s like a book full of pictures. Have you ever done a connect the dots?” El nods without looking back over. “Okay, well, it’s a bit like that. But these stars, they don’t really make a picture. They make a little pattern and people have been making up stories and characters for these patterns since… Well, since forever. See, over there,” Max is leaning over without thinking, grabbing El’s hand and pointing it up to a little cluster of stars. “That’s the Draco constellation. Draco is Latin for dragon. And there? That’s Perseus, and next to it is Cassiopeia, and...” Max trails off, turning to look at El. To her surprise, El is looking over at her in awe.

“Pretty,” She whispers, and Max can’t figure out if she’s talking about the stars or – _what if?_ – Max herself.

“Yeah,” Max feels her breath catch in her throat. “Yeah, the stars… They’re beautiful.”

She can’t look away from El. Can’t look away from those eyes… From those lips…

“There’s a 24 hour diner open down the road,” Somebody interrupts, slicing through the bliss like a knife through butter. Max and El jump back from each other, and Max turns to glare at Dustin for interrupting their moment. But Dustin seems to not have noticed, and instead continues to flap his never stopping mouth. “I want to study the acts of people with late night jobs and Lucas says he wants coffee.”

“Needs,” Lucas corrects, stepping out of the darkness and looking exasperated. “To put up with your bullshit.” Max agrees wholeheartedly – she too needs coffee to put up with Dustin.

El stands up, smiling happily. “We can have donuts for breakfast!” She declares to Max, looking delighted. “And we can pay with the money that Hopper gave me yesterday!” She digs an old, faded flower purse out of her pocket and holds it up in the air. “Coming, Max?”

“Of course,” Max agrees, forcing a smile onto her face. “Wouldn’t miss four AM coffee with you nerds for the world.” She stands up and follows her friends back to where they left their bikes (and her skateboard).

“Oh, and Max?” El turns around to smile at her. “Do you think you can keep teaching me about Percy and Dragon constants another time?”

“Perseus and Draco constellations,” Max corrects, her heart filling with happiness. “I’d love to.”

<><><><>

Lucas and Max pile into Dustin’s car, squashed up in the front seat. Dustin’s car is always horrible to ride in, because it smells like sour milk and bubblegum, and there is always some sort of enormous science experiment in the back so they have to sit in the front, together. Honestly, it’s a wonder they haven’t been arrested yet.

“So then Steve was like, _I don’t_ do _drugs, it’s only marijuana!_ Can you believe that bullshit? Like, hello? Marijuana _is_ a drug! But when I told him that, Robin and Billy just started laughing harder and the only way I could get them to shut up was by promising them food. I can’t _believe_ you guys made me look after three high assholes. Seriously though, Steve was the worst, and your brother was just fucking encouraging him! All, _get ‘em baby!_ And _oh! Call Max! She can smoke with us!_ ”

“Weed isn’t that bad,” Lucas states from the ground of the car at Max’s feet. “There’s no way it could get them _that_ high. You’re exaggerating.”

“I don’t care!” Dustin shrieks, loud enough to make both Max and Lucas cover their ears. “They shouldn’t be high in the first place!”

Max squirms, trying to get more comfortable. She digs her feet into Lucas’s side, resulting in a yelp, and suppresses a snicker. “Dustin, don’t you think you’re overreacting just a little bit? It’s just weed.”

“It’s a gateway drug! It kills the brain cells!” Dustin, who drives like a grandmother and indicates for a full thirty seconds before he pulls into the high school parking lot, found Billy, Steve and Robin smoking weed in Steve’s pool shed two days ago. And he hasn’t shut up about it since. Max rolls her eyes, nudging her foot against Lucas’s side again.

“We’re here,” She tells him, and Lucas lets out a relieved moan. They clamber out of the car and fall onto the ground, getting some strange looks from the people who are passing by. Max manages to stand up first, and she brushes some gravel off her jeans before spinning around and scanning the car park. All the way across the other side, she can see Will and Mike getting out of Mike’s car, infatuated by some video game in Mike’s hands. _Those two hang out an awful lot_ , she thinks. _I wouldn’t be surprised if they were secretly in love with each other_. She shakes her head at the thought and turns around to help Lucas up.

As it usually is on a Friday – and the second last one until they’re finally let out of school for the summer holidays – the school is buzzing with energy. Several people talk excitedly about parties as they walk past, and another states miserably that their parents will probably make them all get jobs. Max grins – this is the first summer she will get to spend with El as her friend instead of her unwanted enemy. “Excited for summer, dickhead?” She asks Lucas, nudging him. He smiles and nudges her back.

“Uh, well, duh! _You’re_ probably going to beat the _Dig Dug_ record, and I won’t have to see that idiot unless I want to.” He jerks his head at Dustin, who is pulling the coil he made when they were fourteen out of his back seat and ranting about inviting Suzie down.

“You’ll _have_ to see him when I throw a party,” Max states. “You know, when I beat the record.” Lucas groans, tosses his head back, and begins to complain. “No buts!” Max laughs. “He’s your best friend, you asshole!”

“–And I can show her the quarry, and the park, and my house, and–”

“Nah,” Lucas says, both of them ignoring Dustin as he continues to list places he’ll take Suzie. “You’re probably my best friend. Better than this idiot, anyway.”

“Aw,” Max teases. “That’s so _sweet_!”

“Shut up!” Lucas laughs. His ears have turned pink, something that only happens when he’s truly embarrassed, so Max throws her arms around his shoulders with a smile.

“Think you’re probably my best friend too, stalker,” She says affectionately, rubbing his dark hair with her palm. “Don’t you ever forget it.”

Gross. Feelings. They walk into the school together and discover that Dustin has managed to get Will and Mike to help him drag the coil through the hallways. It has grown bigger over the last two years – what was once able to be carried by one person with a little difficulty has now graduated to at least four people and extreme difficulty. Max snickers and shoves Lucas towards them. “Go help them, loser,” She says. Lucas groans, then joins the parade through the school hallways with two metal rods over his shoulders.

Everybody stares at them and Max follows behind, giggling and carrying Dustin’s backpack of screwdrivers. After watching her friends struggle under the weight for a while, Max finally joins in, and gasps as she feels her shoulders crack under the pressure. “Fuck!” She winces. Luckily, they don’t have far to go, and eventually manage to dump the coil in Mr Clarke’s – who has managed to become a high school science teacher instead of a middle school science teacher – classroom. Then they all stumble to their classes, groaning and complaining.

Lucas and Dustin argue in loud whispers throughout the entire class, and Will, who is sitting next to Max, sketches a drawing of Mike, then scribbles it out with a red face when he catches staring at it curiously. Max reads a book about astronomy and by the end of the lesson there is a little doodle of the Ursa Major constellation on her arm. “I’m going to get this as a tattoo!” Max exclaims, throwing her arm onto the boy’s shoulders.

She’s been studying a lot of astronomy recently. Not only are the stars breathtakingly beautiful, Max also wants to learn more about the constellations and planets for when she and El finally manage to sneak out again. She plans on being able to answer all of El’s questions and then some.

She really does want the Ursa Major as a tattoo, though. Maybe with a little Draco on her other wrist.

Billy has a tattoo. It’s shitty and cost fifty bucks, but he loves it. So does Steve, and Max thinks it’s pretty cool too. He is always talking about the tattoos he’s going to get when he has enough cash, and Max often joins him. She wants a little Pacman on her shoulder, as well as several constellations and a broken heart on her left wrist. Billy wants a scorpion on his neck, a crow on his arm, and a wilting rose on his heart. Max thinks they’ll look awesome when they stand next to each other. _“Bitchin’,”_ El would say. They’ll look bitchin’.

Everybody is ignoring the teacher during almost every class, and the Party is no exception. Max listens to her friends chatter away but eventually finds herself drifting off into her mind and thoughts. The day is warm but beautifully cold at the same time. The breeze ruffles the leaves on the trees and blows paper out of people’s arms. Max lets her gaze shift over to the street, where people are hurrying past. She spots Billy on his afternoon break, covered in oil and laughing with his friend Heather, whom he met at the pool a year or two ago. Several other girls in Max’s class are also watching him, and Max wrinkles her nose in disgust when the conversation in the class shifts from parties over the holidays to Billy Hargrove and when he takes his shirt off when working.

Lucas snickers into his hand as Max feels herself blush red. She has to hold herself back from turning around and snapping at those girls, shouting at them to shut up. “You’d think since he graduated that those girls would stop fawning over him,” Lucas whispers. Max snarls at him and Lucas’ eyes grow wide in fear. He turns back to his conversation with Mike.

School ends eventually. Max and her friends race out of school, delighted to only have another week until the summer holidays start.

As usual, El and Billy are standing in the carpark. El is messing with his Walkman again while Billy ignores the girls who are walking past and giggling. He looks relieved when Max finally shows up. “Listen, Max,” He says, stubbing his cigarette out. “There’s this concert in Indianapolis. Me, Harrington, Heather and Buckley are going down. Road trip or whatever. You’ll be good here for the weekend?”

Max pauses in the middle of putting her bag in the backseat. She frowns, wondering if she’ll have to skate around everywhere again or ride in Dustin’s or Mike’s cars. For a second, she wants to say no, wants to say that she doesn’t like it when he leaves because then she’s just left with her friends and they’re kind of idiots sometimes and what if something happens with Neil? But then she thinks about how he’s always driving her everywhere, checking her for bruises, when he could be hanging out with his friends and not his little sister who isn’t actually his sister. “I’ll be fine,” She says then, putting a brave smile on her face.

Because Neil will never hit her, but what if? _What if?_ She’s still scared of him. He might be nice sometimes, and takes her out for ice cream, but she can’t erase the images of him slapping Billy across the face or throwing water all over Billy when he said that he didn’t like the meal that Max’s mother Susan cooked. So she is scared of Neil. And she doesn’t think she’ll ever _not_ be scared of him.

“Max,” El speaks then. “I asked Hopper. He says I am allowed to have you over for a sleepover. Would you like to?”

_Yes, oh my god, yes!_ Max wants to scream. _That’ll be amazing! You have no idea how long I’ve been wanting you to say that._ But she plays it cool, flips her hair out of her eyes, and grins. “Sounds neat,” She says. “I might have to ask Neil and my mother, but they’ll probably say yes. When?”

“Tonight,” El says. “And I can learn about Dragon and Percy constants.”

“Draco and Perseus constellations,” Max corrects again.

“Draco and Perseus constellations,” El repeats, trying the words out on her tongue. They sound a little clumsy but Max is proud nonetheless. She throws her skateboard into the backseat of the car with her backpack and waves goodbye to her friends. Everybody jokes around about the _Dig Dug_ record again. Max cannot help smiling so widely her cheeks hurt. But eventually, they have to go. Max clambers into her seat and Billy does the same, just a lot more smoothly. The car purrs, catching the attention of almost everybody in the vicinity, and they tear out of the parking lot a lot louder than probably necessary.

<><><><>

Hopper’s cabin is hidden behind several trees. There is a driveway now, though, which apparently there wasn’t for a long while. Max sits in the back of the police car, El next to her, and watches the trees goes past. She spots a rabbit, then a woodpecker, and then another rabbit. The world is so quiet in the forest, only disturbed by Hopper’s surprisingly quiet engine.

Eventually, they come to a stop in front of an old, beat up cabin. It’s old but obviously very well loved. There are fairy lights strewn about over the front porch, as well as a bird feeder that a little robin pecks at contentedly. Hopper cuts the engine and lets out a groan. Max can hear his back crack. “Alright,” He says in his gruff voice. “I’m not going to be home until nine, ten at the latest. Eat something other than Eggo's, alright?”

“Yes,” El agrees, smiling sweetly. Max thinks about the bag of candy in her backpack and agrees as well. Her and her friend smile slyly at each other.

They watch Hopper drive back down the mountain, his car soon swallowed up by the trees. Finally, they are alone. El turns around, facing the door, and inserts an old, rusted key. The wooden door swings open with a creak, and Max is greeted with nothing but darkness. Only a few seconds after, however, El jerks her head and the curtains are whipped open. She jerks her head again and Max’s bag goes flying out of her hand and lands neatly beside a closed door at the other end of the house. Max follows her inside, her mouth hanging open. It’s the first time she’s seen El use her powers so casually, and it astounds her. Usually it’s only when they’re playing D&D and they need something from out of arms reach.

El kicks her shoes off at the door and Max does the same. The house creaks and groans under their weight, but El seems unbothered as she turns and smiles at Max. “Hopper’s Lay-Z boy,” She says, pointing at a comfortable looking chair off to her side. “Dining room–” A little table in an even smaller kitchen. “–Bathroom–” A wooden door. “–Hop’s room–” A mangy looking curtain. “–My room!” El finishes, looking proud. Her room has a door that is painted a lovely yellow, with little blue flowers over the sides. Max has a feeling that Will was the one who did it for her.

“It’s awesome,” Max says. It’s true. She adores the house. “Can I see your bedroom?”

El nods enthusiastically and the door flies open. The curtains are opened there as well and Max steps inside. The bedroom has walls painted a light green. Her bed covers are rainbow. There are drawings everywhere and a radio and an old TV and so many stuffed animals and just… Holy shit, Max loves it. “It’s amazing,” She says, heaving her bag through the door and placing it next to El’s bed. She digs her toes into a fluffy red rug that Mike used to have in his bedroom and smiles peacefully. “It’s amazing,” She repeats. “I love it.”

“Took years to get it like this,” El answers. “It used to be just a bed and a cupboard. Now it _all_ of this. Jonathan painted the walls for me. For three days everything was all curtains and I slept in Hopper’s Lay-Z boy.”

“I painted my walls yellow,” Max says. “Back h– Back in California. Billy had his painted a light blue but that was before his mum… You know...” She awkwardly shifts on her feet. “Left...”

“Yes, he told me,” El says, a sad smile on her face. “And he said that he used to have beads instead of curtains and gardens instead of sports because his mum was a hippie.”

“I’ve never met her,” Max admits.

“None of us have. Just Billy and his papa. He misses her, though. He looks like her and says that makes his papa angry and sad.”

“Yeah...”

“Yes,” El agrees, nodding her head sadly. For a moment, it is silent. Then El pipes up and says, “I want to show you something!”

They wander out the back door, and Max’s mouth falls open. The garden is full to the brim with flowers, bushes, all sorts of things. The grass is green and lush, and Max takes her socks off to feel it. It tickles her ankles and she giggles, shifting about. There is a little swing seat hanging next to the door, and several vines climbing up the side of the house. It’s strange to see such tended to plants in such a wild and uncared for forest, and gives Max a lovely warm feeling inside.

“This is where we can look at stars!” El exclaims, pointing at a little red picnic blanket with some pillows and fluffy throws. “And we can even sleep out here if we want to! Hopper says he’ll make pancakes for breakfast and when he does we can put lots of candies and fruit on it and then eat it out here!”

She’s so excited. Max’s heart clenches with adoration, and before she knows it she’s running forward, grabbing El’s hands in her own. They spin around in the grass, giggling hysterically and staring at each other.

El’s hair, loose today, flutters behind her. Her big brown eyes are full of delight and happiness, and Max… Well, she pauses. They stop in the middle of the grass. Max thinks she could stay with this girl for the rest of her life. They could live in this little cottage in the woods and have Eggo’s every single morning and have a telescope so they can make their money by discovering new planets. Max thinks she could stay here, with El, never moving, and she’ll still be happy as long as El is with her.

“You think a lot,” El whispers. “Sometimes you just stop and stare at me and I can see that you’re thinking and thinking. And you look like you’re trying to figure out everything in the world at once.”

Max feels her lips part slightly. She smiles, feeling her cheeks heat up and become the same colour as her hair. “I don’t know what to say to that,” She admits.

“Those are the best kinds of sentences,” El says, gripping her hands tighter. “The ones that confuse you but still make you feel nice and warm. Do you feel nice and warm?”

“Yes,” Max whispers.

She does. Her hands are probably sweaty and she can feel her heart beginning to speed up, up and up and up. It’s like she’s running a marathon. She’s suddenly breathless. El is in front of her, holding her hands, her eyes big and brown and looking like melted pools of chocolate. Like coffee in the morning. Like puppy’s eyes and autumn leaves.

“The stars,” El says. She has yet to be taught a soft conversation transition. “They come out at night. So until night, we should watch TV and eat Eggo’s!”

By the time night falls, Max and El have stuffed themselves with Eggo’s, ice cream, and all sorts of candies. Now they sit outside on the little blanket, gaze directed up to the stars. “That’s Aquila,” Max says, pointing over to a little cluster of stars to their side. “And you see this… This kind of river? Going through the sky? Well, that’s the Milky Way. The Greeks believed that,” Max stifles a snicker. “Hera’s breast milk went all over the universe, and that’s why we have the Milky Way.” As soon as she says that, El rolls onto her side and presses her head against Max’s shoulder, giggling hysterically. After Max gets over her initial shock of El being so close to her, she starts laughing as well. “It was because they thought that Hercules bit her nipple!” She adds, resulting in an even louder laugh from El. “So she literally fucking _threw the baby_ and just, like, I don’t know, let her fucking _titty milk_ spray all over the _goddamn universe_!” Max gasps for air and squeezes her eyes shut. El throws her arm over her and hugs her tightly, squeezing out the remaining oxygen of Max’s chest.

“Her boobs!” El’s voice is muffled, but Max can feel the vibrations against her shoulder. “Her boob milk is in the sky!”

Max laughs again, but then El is pulling away. Max rolls onto her side too and stares at her, smiling as she watches El’s laughter slowly go from a cackle to a small, soft giggle.

The moonlight illuminates the girl in front of Max. Her soft curls, still wet from the shower El had only half an hour earlier while Max curled up and listened to Madonna, fall gently in front of El’s light brown eyes. Shadows dance across her lightly tanned skin. Her lips, plush and pink, probably taste like chocolate ice cream. Max wants to move forward, feel chocolate against her strawberries.

Oh.

_Oh_.

Max thinks she might have finally figured it out. Why she doesn’t like Lucas.

Because El is the most beautiful person she’s ever seen.

Because when El smiles everybody stops, stares.

Because Max can’t feel things for boys but girls are enough to make her heart sing with love, dance with desire. Because Eleven Jane Hopper is in front of her, looking beautiful in the moonlight.

Max knows she’s finally figured out why she doesn’t like Lucas.

Because she likes El.

El blinks at her, confused at Max’s sudden silence. She opens her mouth to speak, but Max swiftly moves forward and silences her by capturing her lips in her own.

Eleven Jane Hopper looks like how one would imagine a summer breeze, an embodiment of innocence. She smells like coconut, blueberry, and cinnamon. She feels like a missing piece of a puzzle as Max cups her cheek, and it fits perfectly into Max’s hand. El sounds like bells, a fiddle, like a trickling stream. But most importantly, she tastes like chocolate.

Her lips are soft. Max kisses her harder, her mind devoid of all thoughts. All she knows is that she is kissing El and it’s the most amazing thing she has ever done.

It is Max that breaks the kiss first. All at once, a million emotions and logical thoughts come rushing at her like a tsunami and Max pulls away so fast it’s like El has burned her. El stares at her, eyes wide with horror.

Max feels tears pricking at her own eyes. Without a word, she leaves, and El doesn’t call after her.

<><><><>

Max walks through the dark forest for what feels like eternity. She doesn’t know where to go, feeling as if Neil would sniff out the reason for being depressed within a minute. Steve’s house is out, because Billy, Steve, and their two friends have all gone down to Indianapolis for the weekend. Mike would probably kill her if she showed up saying she kissed his girlfriend, and, well, Lucas and Dustin are _teenage boys._ She feels lost. The wind stings at her face, feeling colder than it has since the wintertime.

Tears roll down her cheeks as Max marches on the soft forest floor without a destination in mind. All she can think about is El’s shocked, horrified, disgusted look when Max kissed her. Those brown eyes, usually full of adoration and delight were reduced to pure, unfiltered hatred, nothing but disgust.

Max screams in anger and punches a tree. She feels a sharp pain blast through her knuckles, and it feels so good she does it again. Again, and again, and again until Max falls onto her knees and pulls her hair tightly. Blood drips from her knuckles and runs down her wrist like a river of blood. It probably stains the green shirt that she is wearing, and she doesn’t have it in her anymore to care.

She doesn’t know how long she stays on the ground, sobbing her heart out, but by the time she finally feels okay enough to look up the stars have been covered by a threatening rain cloud. Max lets out a sigh and continues to walk until she finally reaches a familiar house.

Will and his mother Joyce live right on the edge of the state forest, and their backyard opens up into it. It’s only a half an hour walk from Will’s house up to El’s, provided you are fit enough. Max stands on the edge of Will’s property and leans down to pat the dog, who sniffs at her in a worried manner and licks her hand. She can see a figure sitting on the steps, but can’t tell if it’s Will or his mother, because the figure’s face is hidden by shadows. She takes a big step forward, and that makes a twig crack under her foot. The figure looks up, and Will is suddenly peering at her from his steps, confused and clearly a little nervous. “Max?” He says in that quiet, calming way that Max has always found nice. “Max, is that you? What are you doing here? It’s nearly midnight.”

Max opens her mouth to speak, but a sob escapes instead. Will, concerned, jumps up and rushes towards her. She pushes away his worried pat on her shoulder and shakes her head, feeling pitiful. “I’m sorry,” She mumbles, tears running down her cheeks and plopping onto the grass. “I just… I didn’t know where else to go. I needed somebody, but...”

“It’s okay,” Will comforts her. His voice is still high pitched and childish, and calming because it reminds Max that not everybody needs to grow up so fast, not everybody needs to act like an adult when they’re a traumatised teenager. “Why don’t you come in? I’m sure my mum won’t mind. She’s staying at Hopper’s tonight. Isn’t...” Will squints at Max. “Isn’t that where you’re supposed to be right now?”

“I’m a lesbian!” Max blurts out suddenly. Will stops, stares. His eyes go even wider, and he begins to resemble an owl. Max, feeling humiliated and wondering if she was wrong with her idea of Will being gay as well, lowers her gaze to the ground. She doesn’t want to face Will’s discomfort, disgust.

“Okay...” Will says very slowly. “Okay. I think I might be gay as well.”

Max’s heart is still heavy with depression, but those words lift it just a little bit. He’s just like her! Just as weird and fucked up and different as she is!

“I kissed El,” Max adds, full of shame. “I kissed El because I have a crush on her.”

It feels so good to say it out loud, without judgement. _I’m gay. I like a girl. I’m gay and I like the first friend who is a girl I’ve ever had. I’m gay and I’m also an idiot who fell for a straight girl._

Will is staring at her with those big, owl eyes. He nods, once, twice, then tilts his head at the door. “Okay,” He says again. “Well, I think it’s going to rain, so… Do you want to come inside?”

Max nods as another tear manages to escape and roll down her cheek.

A few minutes later, the pair sit on the couch, TV playing quietly in the background as Max tells Will all about what happened with El. She leaves out the part about El’s eyes sparkling in the moonlight, or her wet hair, or her chocolate tasting lips. Will listens, eyes wide, his hands wrapped around a cup of cocoa as Max nurses her own mug. When she reaches the part about kissing her, she can feel shame stinging at her heart. It crowds her body like a rash and sticks to her like glue. She can’t stop thinking about El’s eyes, how horrified they looked.

When she has finally finished, she takes a deep breath. Will is silent. He appears to be pondering the story, his mind studying every nook and cranny of the tale until he has finally sorted it out. “I think...” He says, trailing off for a brief moment before there appears to be a burst of confidence and he looks up at Max with determined eyes. “I think you need to tell the Party. El first. I think you should tell her that you’re a lesbian, and then tell the rest of the Party. They’re all really open, I promise!”

Max scoffs, setting her mug down on the table. “Yeah, what do I say? _El, I’m gay and I have a huge crush on you, and Mike, I kissed your girlfriend_? Yeah. Right. It’s a perfect plan to get kicked out of the only group of friends I’ve ever actually had.”

“Well, you don’t know that!” Will insists. “And… I’m sure Mike will understand. He says bad things sometimes… Like, uh, he’s best friends with Lucas and he doesn’t _care_ that he’s black, b-but sometimes he’s accidentally racist. He doesn’t mean it, though. That’s what I’m getting at.”

“I kissed El! You do realise how much he loves her, right?” Max snaps, then immediately feels bad as Will’s eyes well up with tears. He nods gently as tears spill down his cheeks. “Oh,” Max whispers, understanding. Of course Will knows how much Mike loves El. He’s been in love with Mike for years; it’s obvious. “You love Mike, don’t you?” Max says softly. Will sniffles loudly and wipes his nose with his sleeve, then nods.

“I’ve… I’ve been in love with him since I was eleven,” Will whispers. “I thought… I thought for a little bit that he loved me back, that… T-that we’d be crazy together. He held my hand, Max!” Will cries, looking up at her with wild eyes. Max stays silent. “He held my hand! He didn’t do that with anyone else. He said… He said c _razy together_. But then I realised he doesn’t l-love me like that. I’m just his friend – his _best_ friend – and that should be enough but it feels like I’m insane because I love him so much and he can’t stop looking at _her_!”

Max has never been good at comforting people. She always marvelled as she watched people manage to calm others down with a few words, a few soft touches. But she thinks that’s because she never understood what they were going through. Now, sitting here with Will, she has finally met somebody who _understands_. Pining after best friends, after straight people. So, she takes a deep breath, looks at the boy in front of her, and moves forward. She hugs him.

The first few seconds of the hug are awkward. Max feels ridiculous, stupid. She wants to pull away and scream. But just when she’s about to, Will’s arms wrap around her and he hugs her tightly.

She tries not to feel tense, and probably gives Will the worst hug he’s ever had in his entire life, but luckily he’s actually smiling when he finally ( _finally!_ ) pulls away. “Thanks,” He mumbles, wiping a few more tears away from his face.

“Look at us,” Max jokes, trying to lighten the situation. “Just a couple of gays, pining over our straight friends.”

That night, she falls asleep in the spare room, which used to belong to Jonathan. The bed is stiff and there are springs poking into her back, but she feels more at home knowing that somebody else who understands her is right across the hall.

Max finds her stuff at the bedroom door when she wakes up. This sparks a new wave of fury and shame, and Max tries to ignore it as she digs through her backpack and grabs the Walkie. For a moment, it’s silent, then there’s a crackle of static. Somebody is trying to reach her. “–ax,” Somebody says. Their voice is too broken up to tell who it is. “M – ax! C–” Max panics and turns the Walkie off, shoving it right to the bottom of her backpack.

“Max?” A feminine voice calls down the hallway. Joyce Byers comes around the corner and smiles at her. Max feels stupid, crouched on the lady’s carpet, holding a backpack, eyes red from tears. She opens her mouth to explain but Joyce is already speaking again. “Will told me there was a fight with El last night, said you came here. He was still up when I got home, told me you were asleep in Jonathan’s room. I made pancakes.”

Max blinks, confused, then looks down at her backpack. Before she can ask, Joyce has once again started to speak. “Oh, the bag? Well, when Hopper went back home after letting me off here, I gave him a call. He got your stuff and dropped it off here this morning.”

“Is El–” Max blurts, then shuts her mouth.

“El’s fine, sweetie. She’s just not talking to Hop, that’s all. Come and have pancakes.”

By the time Max gets home, she’s stuffed full with pancakes and is ignoring the heavy feeling of guilt. She and Joyce sit outside her house, parked on the side of the street. It’s silent, and Max is tempted to leave, but the warm comfort of Joyce is just too nice. She doesn’t want to go back inside her cold house, to have to look her mother and step-father in the eye without telling them that she’s a lesbian. She doesn’t want to see her mother and think, _you don’t even_ know _me_. She just doesn’t know if she can do it.

“The fight,” Joyce finally says, breaking the silence. “Can I ask what it was about?”

Max stares down at the bag on her lap. She wets her lips with her tongue, grips the straps of her backpack tighter, then whispers, “I kissed her. And she didn’t like it.”

Joyce’s lips part, forming a little _O_. Max, overcome with shame, jumps out of the car and storms inside before Joyce can process the words. She locks herself in her bedroom and cries.

<><><><>

Saturday rolls into Sunday, which quickly turns into Monday. Max has managed to avoid her friends and family all weekend, and even rejects her favourite dinner, spaghetti. She curls up in bed and only leaves her bedroom when she needs to. However, she cannot stay in her little safe haven for long, because Monday comes knocking at her door faster than she wants it to. She drags herself out of bed and has a long, hot shower, using all of the hot water.

Her outfit, usually easy to choose, is now yet another thing that makes Max want to cry. She surveys the lump of clothes on her bed and eventually grabs a faded _Metallica_ shirt (one she stole from Billy’s old wardrobe), pairing it with denim shorts and a pair of work boots. She then stares at herself in the mirror and takes her chin-length hair in her hand, twirling it around her fingers. She pulls it back and wonders what everybody would think if she turned up at school with a shaved head. She can add some more piercings too, while she’s at it.

“Mum,” Max says when she emerges from her bedroom and sits down at the breakfast table. “Can I cut my hair?”

Her mother turns around, a wide smile on her face that falters when she sees Max’s punk outfit. “Morning, sleepyhead,” She says instead, ignoring the question and the fact that Max has been up for longer than both of them. “I made eggs.”

“Can I cut my hair?” Max repeats, fixing her mother still with a cold glare. “Please?”

“Whatever for?” Her mother laughs, tugging playfully on Max’s fiery red hair as she places a plate of bacon and eggs in front of her. “I think you should grow it out. You don’t want to look… Well, like–”

“Like a dyke?” Max cuts in before she can stop herself. Her mother gapes. “If you don’t let me go to the hairdressers, then lets face it,” Max continues. “I’ll just end up doing it myself.” That was how it went down last time too. Max wanted to have her hair chin-length, but when her mother refused, she took a pair of craft scissors to her locks and had an appointment at the salon within the hour.

“I’ll see if they have any available spots today, then,” Max’s mother sighs as she takes a seat across from Max. “Honey, you know I didn't mean– You’ll look gorgeous with short hair… I didn’t mean – I didn’t mean looking like a...” She struggles to say the word. “ _Dyke_ ,” She eventually whispers, as if it pains her. “I just… I think it would make you look too much like a boy. If that’s what you want, then fine, but I’ll admit I like your long hair better.”

“It’ll look rad,” Max says, more to comfort her mother than herself. “Don’t worry, mum. Nobody is going to think I’m gay.”

_I hope everyone thinks that_ , Max thinks nastily. _I hope they all know I’m a dyke and that they shouldn’t mess with me_.

She skateboards to school, because Billy has only just arrived home and is probably sleeping off a hangover. The carpark is crowded, as usual, and Max receives some curious stares as she skates past them. She knows it’s not because they _know_ what happened on Friday, that it’s probably about the fact that Max usually arrives in Billy’s car or with a gaggle of friends, and today she’s all alone.

She deliberately avoids the Party, thanking the God she doesn’t believe in when they don’t spot her sneaking past, too caught up on some video game in Mike’s hands.

Her day is spent hiding from her so called friends. Max feels like an idiot as she ducks behind corners and locks herself in the girls bathroom. It feels like a routine – hiding on the way to school, hiding at school, hiding after school. Max wonders if there’s anywhere that she actually feels safe. Every place in Hawkins just feels like a setting in front a camera. Everybody is watching her. They probably all know that’s she a lesbian, that she kissed El.

When school finally ends, Max walks out to find her mother’s car. She clambers in, and her mother Susan tells her that she’s got a hair appointment in an hour.

Red hair falls to the ground as the scissors snip neatly at her locks. Max studies herself in the mirror. Freckles, red hair, blue eyes. Her skin, once tanned golden from the sunny beaches and skate parks in California, is now as pale as the snow that falls in the wintertime. And her eyes, once bright and full of mischief, are now darker than they were before. Maybe it’s the trauma she carries, and has been carrying since 1984, or maybe it’s just summer depression, but they now hold sadness.

Max didn’t realise how heavy her hair was until she’s standing up from the chair with short, spiky hair and an ecstatic smile on her face. Her mother fusses about, fretting about how she liked the long hair better and _I knew you’d look like a boy, honey, why don’t you ever_ listen _?_ She pays the hairdresser anyway, and Max walks out of the shop feeling better than she has in a long while.

The next day, she gets stared at as she skates through, and this time she knows it’s because of her hair. Then after, people are whispering, and maybe it’s because she’s still alone or her spiky style or it’s because they _know_. Thursday is the day that she finally gets caught by the Party, or specifically, Lucas. He grabs her wrist and pulls her around the side of the building when she’s taking the long way to history. “What the hell?” She snarls, tugging her wrist away and glaring at him. “For fucks sake, Lucas, what do you want?”

Lucas doesn’t answer for a moment. He reaches up and touches her spikes, and Max bats his hand away, flushing red. “Your hair,” He says, looking horrified. “What did you _do_ to it?”

“Cut it,” Max grumbles, crossing her arms. “ _Obviously_.”

“Why?”

“Because I wanted to! Drop it, would you?” Max pats her red hair, scowling. “Now what the fuck do you want?”

“You’ve been avoiding us,” Lucas says, his eyes still on her hair. “We were worried, you know that?! You’re not answering your Walkie, your brother hasn’t seen you since Friday, and we couldn’t find you at school because you literally look like a guy. Do you have any idea how long it took for us to figure out that it was you?”

“Oh, piss off!” Max snaps sharply. “Don’t act like you’re worried about me. El has probably already told you, so you don’t need to pretend to _care_. And as for my hair, I like it like this! It’s _my_ body, Lucas! I can do what I want with it, and I wanted to cut it, and I don’t fucking care if you think it looks bad! So there.”

Lucas is silent. His dark skin has once again flushed darker, a blush spreading across his cheeks and all the way up to his ears. “I never said it was bad,” He mumbles after a moment of awkward silence. “I think… I think you look wicked with it. But… You know we’re all nervous about people disappearing without a trace.”

“Oh,” Max feels her own face turning red. She looks away. “You like it?”

“I like it,” Lucas assures her. Max’s lips threaten to turn upwards into a smile, and she digs her the toe of her shoe into the ground, not looking up. The pair of them are silent for a moment, listening to people laughing or shouting, the panicked shrieks of some freshmen as the bell rings shrilly. “What was that El told us?” Lucas asks then. Max’s small smile quickly morphs into a frown.

“You know,” She mumbles, crossing her arms and huffing. “That I’m… That I...”

Lucas still looks confused. Max stares at him, her lips parted slightly. _Hasn’t El told them?_ She thinks as her brain runs over the possibilities of their awkward kiss being locked away in the little box in the corner of Max’s mind, the one that says _DO NOT TOUCH_. “She hasn’t told you,” Max states. Lucas shakes his head, looking a mixture of worried and confused.

“No. She hasn’t told us anything. She’s barely talking to any of us.”

“Oh,” Max breathes.

She wonders if she can live out her life pretending to love Lucas. He would be easy to love – she could marry him and they could have a perfect little toxic family. But deep in her heart, Max knows that now she’s tasted the lips of a girl, of _El_ , she can’t pretend anymore. She wants to shout it from the rooftops. _I like girls! I’m a lesbian!_ Wouldn’t that be nice? She can go back to California, back home, and get a girlfriend. She’ll be a professional skateboarder. She’ll hold the record for _Dig Dug_ and her house will have an indoor pool and a skating rink!

Lucas needs to know, Max realises. She can’t keep leading him on, dragging him into bathrooms and kissing him, flirting with him simply because it feels good. She likes girls, and it might hurt him to know that Max never felt the same things for him, but the truth is what needs to be told.

So, Max looks around, seeing that everybody else has already gone to class. She wets her lips with her tongue, grabs Lucas’s hand, and fixes him with a stony glare. “Lucas,” She starts, then gets caught in his brown eyes. _Lucas really is my best friend_ , she realises. Max doesn’t know if she wants to lose him over her sexuality. She can feel her confidence slipping away and doubt sinking in instead, and Max struggles to grasp onto the little bravery that she has left. “I like girls,” She manages to say. Lucas’s lips part slightly. “And I’m sorry that I’m not… Not like you. That I don’t feel the same things for you. I’m a lesbian, Lucas.”

Lucas steps backwards, pulling their hands apart. He frowns deeply at her, looking betrayed and confused. “Seriously?” He whispers, sounding so broken that Max wants to cry. “How long… How long have you known?”

“Since last Friday,” Max admits. Lucas lets out a little huff of relief.

“Well, that’s not that long. Is that why you were avoiding us? Because you like girls?”

“It’s not the only reason.” Max looks back down at the ground, full of shame. She doesn’t know if she can bring herself to admit that she kissed El, that she feels so much adoration for her that it makes her heart swell. Lucas doesn’t press, though. He simply moves forward and wraps his arm around her shoulders.

“It’s whatever. You can like girls – I don’t care. Have you got a girlfriend?” He smiles sympathetically when Max shakes her head. “Well, me neither. The last girl I dated turned out to be a raging homosexual who is obsessed with _Dig Dug_.” Max gasps, jabbing him in the ribs.

“Not so loud, stalker!”

“There’s nobody around!” Lucas protests, gripping his side and dancing away as Max goes to jab him again. “Ah! I’m sorry!” He laughs. “Forgive me, oh _Dig Dug_ queen! Please, I beg of you!”

Max laughs as well, missing the playful relationship that her and Lucas share. “I sentence you to death on behalf of the _Dig Dug_ kingdom,” She says coldly, and Lucas lets out a shriek as she digs her fingers into his ribs again. “You have been tried with treason! And murder! And basically being a dick!”

The pair of them are interrupted when somebody opens the nearest classroom door and peers out of it. One of the teachers, a lady who has been working at the school for longer than humanly possible, scowls. “Are you two supposed to be somewhere?” She pries. “Because you’re being _incredibly_ loud and interrupting my grading. So unless you want detention, I suggest you get to class, _now_.”

Max and Lucas smile sheepishly and scurry away. They don’t end up going to class, of course, but instead muck around behind the bleachers, making up for lost time. By the time the bell rings again, they’re both giggling madly and racing over the football field.

The moment is broken, of course, when Dustin, Mike, and Will approach. Max, unsure if she wants to come out to Dustin and Mike yet, tenses and adjusts the strap of her backpack. “I’ll see you tomorrow, then?” She questions Lucas. “Last day of school?”

“Last day of junior year,” Lucas adds, punching her shoulder playfully. “Then we’ve only got to make it through senior, and we’re free!”

“What do you want to do after high school?” Max asks, glancing at the quickly approaching group of boys, two of which who are clearly curious as to why Max has been avoiding them all week and the other holding onto one of her biggest secrets – her feelings for Eleven Jane Hopper.

“Haven’t decided yet,” Lucas admits. “Probably just get a few jobs until I find something I’m good at. You?”

Max takes a moment to ponder. She thinks about the warm air of California, the way it beckons to her. She thinks about the open lesbians there, the ocean waves, the boiling hot concrete. There are few things that Max is sure of, in her life, and one of those few is her adoration for the place she grew up in. Country town life doesn’t suit her, despite trying so hard to make it fit. So really, she wants to move back home – _California_ – and from there, she can figure it out. However, she doesn’t know how Lucas will react, so she just shrugs and punches his shoulder as well. “I’ll be in prison by then, duh. Don’t worry about finding a job either. You’ll be six feet under the ground.” Max grins as Lucas’s eyes grow wide, and she ruffles his afro before adjusting her backpack again. “I’ll catch ya tomorrow, dork.”

<><><><>

The last day of junior year is exhausting. Max, despite now reforming her friendship with Lucas, still hides from Mike. She doesn’t particularly want to avoid Dustin and Will, but they’re kind of a package deal when it comes to friendship, and Max isn't sure if she can look Mike in the eye without blurting out that she kissed his girlfriend. She doesn’t see El, either. In fact, nobody but Mike has seen her since last Friday. Max feels a little spike of energy when Lucas tells her that, then hides her face behind her book.

When the day ends, Max watches her friends run out and throw their schoolbooks in the bin. Her heart aches to join them, but her mind reminds her of the dilemma she’s in. She instead shoves her hands into her pockets and walks out into the carpark, her skateboard posed in her hands as she prepares to kick off and skate home. However, just when she’s about to, her keen eyes spot Billy’s car sitting all the way near the exit. She hasn’t seen Billy since Friday either, and gnaws on her bottom lip.

Does she want to see him? Billy hasn’t made any effort to contact her since Friday, which makes Max feel a little unwanted. However, she reminds herself that Billy has a life too, and probably doesn’t want to spend all of his time with his kid sister.

Billy is leaning against his car, a smaller figure beside him. Max feels her face flush bright red – El is wearing a shirt that hugs her chest, for once, with a pair of dark blue shorts. Her hair is loose, and instead of hanging down near her chest like it usually does, Max notices with a start that it has been cut to just below her jaw, a style that Max herself had before she decided to get rid of it.

Max grips her skateboard tighter and squeezes her eyes shut when her mind helpfully provides the memory of kissing her all those nights ago.

_She tasted like chocolate_. Wet hair and soft skin, with sugar coated lips. Everything about that kiss just felt so… So _right_. Like El fit against Max perfectly. But the way El had looked at her afterwards, with shock, with disgust, makes Max feel like gum on the bottom of somebody’s shoe.

When Max opens her eyes, her brother and ex-friend still haven’t noticed her. She swallows the lump in her throat and turns around, intending to skate home the long way. However, she collides painfully with a smaller figure, who stumbles and nearly falls over. Will adjusts himself and blinks owlishly up at Max, a look of surprise crossing his face. “Hi,” He says softly. Max stares at him for a moment, then smiles.

“Hey.”

The last time she saw Will, she had spent the entire night talking about kissing El while he admitted he was in love with the boy he had known for most of his life. Max has wanted to talk to Will for a while now, but Mike seems to always be stuck at Will’s hip and, well, looking Mike Wheeler in the eye is probably not the best thing for Max.

Will adjusts his backpack and smiles back. He clutches onto the straps of the bag on his back, looking surprisingly childish for a boy of seventeen. Max feels her heart clench affectionately – Will is the only one in Hawkins who actually understands, and lucky for her, he’s the sweetest person she knows. “I haven’t seen you for a while,” Will says. “I’m assuming you’re avoiding Mike?”

“I don’t want to tell him,” Max admits, scratching the heel of her shoe on the concrete. She glances over her shoulder. Billy and El haven’t noticed her yet, but with her bright red hair, it’s only a matter of time. “Listen, Will, we should hang out over summer. But I really have to go. El is over there, and she’s–” Max is cut off when a voice shouts her name. Billy raises his arms in the air, a look of frustrated questioning on his face, which probably means _I haven’t seen you in ages, what took you so long?_ Max sighs. “I’ve got to go,” She tells Will, and turns back to look over at Billy, who has crossed his arms.

“I’ll see you over summer, then!” Will says. Max nods, delighted by the idea of spending her summer with Will.

“Max!” Billy shouts again. He’s probably annoyed. Max ruffles Will’s hair, then shoves her hands into her pockets and stalks over to her older brother. Luckily, El has migrated over to where Mike and Lucas are standing, and is now standing beside her boyfriend with their hands linked. Max feels a pang of jealousy.

“I haven’t seen you since Friday,” Billy states when Max arrives in front of him. He pinches her chin between his fingers and tilts her face right and left, apparently looking for bruises. After not seeing any, his gaze lowers to his stomach, and he looks questioningly at Max, his blue eyes decorated with worry and anger. Max lets out a sigh and slaps him softly with the back of her hand.

“He didn’t touch me,” She tells him. “I promise. If he did, you’d be the first person I’d tell, okay? I’d skateboard over to you and Steve’s house.”

Billy visibly relaxes a little, then crosses his arms. “So whats up with your hair?” He asks, tugging playfully on one of the red spikes. Max scrunches up her nose and tries to slap his hand away, but he holds on tight and tugs again. Max laughs, jabbing him in the stomach until he lets go. “You look dope,” Billy says when they stop their playful wrestling. “Come on, squirt, get in the car and I’ll drive you home.”

As usual, Billy’s car purrs loudly and attracts a lot of attention when they tear out of the parking lot. Buildings and trees are left in the rear view mirror as Billy drives twenty miles over the speed limit, not a care in the world. Max rolls her window down and lets the wind ruffle at her spiky hair, her eyes closed peacefully. She tries not to think about El, but as usual El has polluted her mind with her big brown eyes and innocent smile.

“Billy,” Max says, before she can stop herself. “What do you think about gay people?”

Max cannot see Billy’s reaction, but he answers her question very slowly, sounding tense. “Why do you ask?” He sounds almost accusing. Max opens her eyes as the wind stop, and scowls when she sees that Billy has rolled up her window.

“I… I just...” Max struggles to find the right words. “I just want to know,” She settles on, turning to stare at Billy, who is gripping the steering wheel tightly.

“Fine then,” Billy snaps, sounding far too angry for somebody who has just been asked an innocent question. “I don’t give a fuck about gay people, okay? Be a lesbian, be a homo, I don’t fucking care. Why did you ask?”

Max chews on her bottom lip. She thinks about all the people she has come out to in her life – all three of them. She seems to have a habit of blurting it out despite only knowing her sexuality for a week. “I...” Max says carefully, watching Billy warily. “…Am a lesbian. I like girls.”

Billy is silent. He stares straight ahead, blue eyes focused on the road. Max feels her own blue eyes fill up with tears and looks out the window, silently begging for none of her tears to fall. However, her prayers aren’t answered, because a moment later her face is wet and drops are plopping onto her lap. “I’m sorry,” She whispers, more to herself than Billy. “I’m sorry I like girls. You don’t have to speak to me anymore, if you want. Just please don’t tell anyone.”

“I’m gay.”

It’s spoken with shame dancing around the edges. Shame of Billy’s apparent love for men, of the years he must have hidden it away from the world. The shame slowly grows over the words until it’s the only thing that Max can hear. She stares at him, her older brother, as more tears fall down her cheeks. “What?” She says, her voice cracking at the sound. “What did you… Billy, that’s not funny.”

“It’s not a joke,” Billy snarls. “I’m gay. I like men. I’ve been with girls and they make me feel like there’s slime all over my body afterwards. But guys... So, I’m gay. I’ve known since I was twelve.”

Oh.

_Oh_.

So many things fall into place, then. Like pieces of a puzzle, finally clicking together and revealing the full picture. How Billy knew how to do makeup, and how Neil always called him homophobic slurs. That friend of Billy’s back in California that he begged Max not to tell anybody about, the one with dark skin and pink nail polish.

How did Max not realise? She wants to laugh. It’s so ridiculous.

Billy and the way he taunted Steve until they became friends. Billy spending hours in his bedroom, fixing up his hair when he was just going to hang out with a few guys. Billy reading books like _The Black Velvet Gown_ that his father read a few pages of, then threw into the fireplace.

Billy and boys.

_Boys_.

Then, another puzzle begins to form, one that Max can easily put together.

_Steve_.

“Are you and Steve dating?!” Max shrieks. Billy turns bright pink and the car jerks. They pull to a stop on the side of the road. Billy cuts the engine. “I thought you were with Heather!” Max adds, eyes wide. “And Steve is with Robin! Are you going out with _Steve_?!”

“Yes, Max!” Billy shouts, looking both embarrassed and furious at the same time. “I’m dating him! Despite what all of you twerps seem to think, I’m not going out with Heather, and he’s not going out with Buckley, and that’s because we’re _gay_ and they’re _lesbians_!”

Max is stunned. She sits back in her seat, staring out the windscreen. Her mind runs at a million miles an hour. Of course Billy and Steve are dating… How did she not realise it before? “How long?” She asks, her voice cracking a little.

“Since...” Billy lights a cigarette, cutting himself off as he does so. “Since… Well, since just before Christmas of ‘84, I think? It was kind of a hook up thing, though. Then we made it official around two months into ‘85.”

“Do you love him?” Max asks.

“Jesus,” Billy mutters, looking even more embarrassed. His face turns pink, and Max raises her eyebrows in amusement. “Yeah, I… I do. A lot. He makes me really happy.”

They fall into an awkward silence. Max tries to speak, but every word she wants to say sounds clunky and useless, like a robot trying to attempt human emotions. Eventually, all she says is, “Can you drop me off at the arcade?”

Billy obeys, and after they both agree that Max can skate home, Max is left standing in the carpark of _Palace Arcade_ , her skateboard clutched tightly in her arms.

She ends up avoiding the _Dig Dug_ machine, unsure if she should even try to beat her record when she still feels shaky from the revelations. Instead, she plays _D_ _ragons_ _Lair_ and doesn’t even make it onto the score board.

When the night begins to fall and the arcade starts to become a little more crowded, Max shoves the rest of her spare change into her pocket and leaves. The summer air feels amazing on her skin, so she takes off her hoodie and lets the breeze gently kiss at her as she skates through the back roads towards her house. Hawkins is quiet at night, something that Max is thankful for.

Sometimes, Max’s thoughts get really loud. When this happens, Max hits the road on her skateboard and glides through the streets, the wind on her face. Her spiky hair is much easier to skate with as well. Better than her long hair at least, which would get in her face every time she did a trick.

Max wonders what El is doing right now. Is she eating dinner with Hopper? Is she kissing Mike? Or is she thinking about Max as well? Is there a radio blaring static into the otherwise quiet house? Is El sitting with a blindfold on, wondering through the dark abyss of her mind until she finds Max, skating home alone?

Max pauses. She lets the skateboard slow down and eventually comes to a stop beside the Cherry Road sign, pondering. It’s obvious that El doesn’t feel the same way for Max, but does she share the same fascination for her that Max does for the other girl?

“You’re so pretty,” Max mumbles, her gaze directed up to the milky way. The stars glitter back down at her. Is El listening? “You’re so pretty, Eleven. You’ve always been pretty.”

The universe does not answer, and neither does El.

“You are,” Max insists. She presses her cheek against the cold metal pole that holds up the street sign and hugs it. The pole is pressed between her breasts. She speaks again. “Jesus, El, I’m sorry, okay? I just… I like you.”

Silence.

Sometimes the silence is deafening.

“I’m sorry!” Max shouts. A cat yowls in the distance. The neighbours open their curtains and peer out at her, judging. A car rumbles past. She doesn’t care. All she can think about is Eleven Jane Hopper and her boyfriend Mike.

Mike. Mike fucking Wheeler. Does he appreciate her? Does he care for El the way Max does? Or is he just in love with her because she’s the first girl that isn’t disgusted by the sight of him?! Max hugs the pole tighter and wishes she was back home with the Californian sun beating down on her back. But she’s not. She’s just here, in Hawkins, thinking about a girl who doesn’t feel the same things that she does.

Wouldn’t it be so much easier to love Lucas?

Wouldn’t it be so much easier to love Dustin?

Wouldn’t it be so much easier to just… Not exist?

<><><><>

The news spreads through the party like wild fire. Will is the first to tell her, whispered over a hurried phone call. Then it was Dustin, who thought he had the privilege of telling Max first. Finally, Lucas turns up at her window and says, “Did you hear?” Max says yes, she did.

It is only when Lucas ends up biking away as fast as he can because Neil knocks on the door that Max pauses for a moment to consider what it really means.

_El broke up with Mike_.

Her heart is stupid. A tiny little flame begins to spark, a little flicker of hope that she thought she had given up on two weeks ago. Why would they break up? Is it because of Max? Or some other completely unrelated petty argument?

It is two weeks into the summer holidays when Max got the news. She waits another day, and then finds herself skating over to Will’s house, wearing denim shorts and a striped shirt, panting in the humid heat. Her skin is a little red, and her shoulders are sun burnt, but Max persists. She turns up at Will’s house, tucks the skateboard under her arm, and knocks on the door, intending to invite Will to the arcade with her. However, it’s Joyce that opens the door. She blinks at surprise at the sight of Max, and Max feels a little pang of fear. The last time she saw Joyce, she openly admitted to being a lesbian. Despite Joyce’s obvious acceptance towards the gay community, Max is still a little scared of being rejected. “Hi, honey,” She says, smiling. “You’re here for Will, are you?”

“Yeah.” Max shifts on her feet awkwardly. “I was wondering if he wanted to go to the arcade?”

“Oh, I...” Joyce smiles again, this time apologetically. “Sorry, he can’t. Mike’s in his room right now. You’ve heard the news, haven’t you?”

“Yeah,” Max repeats. “Well, can you tell him I stopped by…?” She places her skateboard on the ground, ready to skate to the arcade by herself. Or maybe she can go to Steve and Billy’s house, drink all their lemonade and convince them to give her some alcohol.

“You can come in,” Will’s mother offers, looking excited at the thought of having another girl in the house. Max shakes her head, unable to walk in there and face Mike.

“Nah. Thanks anyway. Can you tell Will that we should hang out soon? Thanks.”

“I will,” Joyce says. There’s silence for a moment before Joyce adds, “Max? I’m proud of you. For discovering yourself. And you’re always welcome here. No matter what. Will came out to me the other day, said you inspired him to do it since you’re so… Brave, about your sexuality. I accept him, and I accept you, and your brother and his boyfriend.” Max doesn’t even have time to panic about the fact that Joyce _knows_ about Billy and Steve, because the woman is still rambling. “And Robin, and Heather. I’m proud of them. And I’m proud of you. So, feel free to stop by anytime, okay? I’m not good at cooking, but I’ll make… Cake, or something. I don’t know.” Joyce shrugs. Involuntarily, Max smiles, but gasps when Joyce reaches forward and wraps her arms around her. The hug is warm, and despite Max not really being one for cuddles or affection, it makes her feel much more calm afterwards. She has to hold back tears when Joyce pulls her away, pats her on the cheek, and tells her she can stop by anytime.

Summer in Hawkins is hot and sticky, so Max skates over to Steve and Billy’s house with the intention of going swimming. It turns out she’s not the only one who had that idea, though, because when she walks up the pebble driveway, there are two extra cars sitting outside the house. One of them is Dustin’s car, and there is, as per usual, some stupid sort of science experiment sticking out the window. Max gives it a flick when she passes it to enter the house. The other car, however, isn’t one that Max recognises. It can’t be Steve’s parents, because they would never drive something as beat up and depressed as the one parked beside Billy’s flashy vehicle. She gets her answer the moment she opens the door without knocking and Heather Holloway struts past, wearing a pink bikini with a ridiculous pair of sparkly high heels. Robin Buckley can be heard arguing with Steve, and beside the sliding glass door in the next room, Billy is lighting a cigarette.

“Hi!” Max shouts loudly, catching Billy’s attention while at the same time, Heather breaks up the petty argument between Robin and Steve, laughing as she does so. Billy waves Max over.

“Hey,” Billy greets absentmindedly, looking over fondly at Steve, who is cracking open a beer and hoisting himself up onto the kitchen bench. “Whatcha doing here, squirt?”

“I was bored,” Max answers. “And I really wanted to go swimming.” On cue, there’s the sound of a splash from outside, and Max looks through the glass to see Lucas and Dustin in the pool. “Looks like I’m not the only one.”

Billy opens the door and blows smoke through the crack, apparently unwilling to set off the smoke alarm. “I tried to call,” He says. “But you weren’t answering your Walkie, and fuck if I’m calling the house when dad is home.” He wipes a thumb over his eye, where the bruise is no longer psychically visible, but still very prominent. Max reaches her hand out to comfort him, but at the last minute tucks her hand into her pocket.

“Can I borrow some clothes?” She asks instead of hugging her older brother. “To swim in?”

“Up in my room,” Billy jerks his head at the staircase, then turns a little pink. “Uh. You know, Steve and I’s room.”

“I _knew_ it!”

“Oh, shut up.” Billy shoves her away playfully, and Max sticks her tongue out at him before she dodges past Robin and walks upstairs, abandoning her skateboard with Billy.

Steve’s house is a lovely temperature all the way through, but it makes Max cringe at the thought of the electricity bill. She pushes open the door to Steven (and Billy’s) bedroom and looks around at the sight in front of her.

It’s easy to see who owns which side, because Billy, despite his uncaring attitude and chaotic personality, is always careful about keeping his room clean. Whereas Billy’s side is prim and proper, Steve’s side is a mess of clothes and random items that certainly don’t belong on the floor. Max crosses Steve’s side of the bedroom and opens a draw, immediately spotting one of Billy’s black shirts. She tucks it under her arm, then grabs a faded pair of basketball shorts that she knows Billy doesn’t really use anymore. After getting changed in the attached bathroom (which is also very clearly separated by mess and tidiness), she heads back downstairs.

Everybody has evacuated to the pool by this point, so when Max opens the sliding glass door, she’s not surprised to see that the pool is a chaotic mess of froth and churning water. Heather is the only one who isn’t wrestling, as she’s floating calmly on a flamingo pool floaty, getting pushed around by the waves her friends are making. Max has to pull her eyes away from Heather’s body, and enters the pool on the side that is the least crowded. Dustin notices her the moment she gets in, and immediately breaks away from the wrestling to doggy paddle towards Max. It’s understandable why he’s so excited, because he and Max haven’t exactly hung out in a while. In fact, the last time they spoke was two days ago, in which Dustin hastily gossiped that El and Mike had broken up.

“Hi!” Dustin huffs, coming to a stop beside Max. He’s not a very good swimmer, unlike Max, who shoots a grin at him and sinks herself underwater.

Being underwater is calming. The faces are blurry, and Max’s hair floats around her like seaweed. She can see a mass of legs on one side of her, and Dustin’s tubby belly on the other. Despite the chlorine stinging at her eyes, Max keeps looking around, fascinated by the quietness despite the bubbles and chaos.

When she resurfaces, it’s been at least thirty seconds. Dustin is looking at her in awe, and when he ducks his own head underwater, he forgets to hold his nose and comes back up, coughing. Max is about to tease him when she hears the glass door open behind her, and a voice rings out across the backyard.

“Brought ice cream cones,” Says El, sounding excited. There’s a mass of cheers from the churning mess of Max’s friends, but Max’s heart is thumping loudly in her ears and she can barely hear them over the rush of adrenaline coursing through her veins.

Max stays with her back to the door as everybody scurries out of the pool, thanking El for their apparent ice cream cones. Slowly, everything becomes quieter. The door opens and closes several times, but eventually, it’s just Max and the water.

And El.

The water ripples softly as El dunks her feet into the pool, and Max can feel it lap softly at her skin. She keeps her back turned, not wanting to see El this close after weeks (nearly a month?) of avoiding her.

“Max?” El mumbles, her voice soft. Max flinches at the sound, and wills her eyes not to prick up with tears. She tense as the water ripples again, this time bigger, and El splashes quietly into the pool.

_No, no, no_ , Max wants to scream. _Fuck. Please go away. I was having a good day, El, please don’t do this to me_.

“Max?” El repeats, and this time, Max really does turn around. Her breath catches. El looks like a mermaid amongst the blue water, her jaw length hair floating in the water. El’s floating, the water up to her chin. She’s looking at Max with big, brown, chocolate eyes, the eyes that looked at Max with disgust all those weeks ago. “Max,” El says for a third time, but this time it’s not a question. “Hi, Max.”

“Hey,” Max breathes, the word coming out a whisper.

“Can we… Talk?”

Max squeezes her eyes shut and shakes her head, drifting away from El. She opens her eyes and directs her gaze up towards the bright, blue sky. “I don’t think so,” Max says. “I actually… I have to go, so. It was nice seeing you, El.”

And it is, really. It’s nice to see El’s face after so long of her just being a silhouette. Max didn’t know just how much she needed El in her life until she had her, and spending all this time without her eyes killed her.

“Max, I...”

“I don’t want to hear it,” Max blurts, but it’s not angry. Sad, really. She knows she sounds pathetic, but she keeps rambling on, still looking up at the sky. “I’m not angry at you, for rejecting me. And, um, I’m kind of more angry at myself? For liking you like this? But you like guys, and you don’t like me, which is. Uh, it’s okay. But it kind of actually really hurts, so I think it’s in both of our best interest if we just stay away from each other. At least until I’m… Over this. But I think that’s going to be a while, so...” Max trails off when there’s the sound of a splash, and she tears her eyes away from the sky to see that El has dunked herself underwater. She comes back up with her usually curly hair straight, her eyelashes clumped with water.

“I broke up with Mike,” El says, moving closer to Max. She doggy paddles awkwardly, clearly unable to swim very well. Instinctively, Max reaches her arms out and steadies El, keeping her afloat. El smiles at her, that sweet, sweet smile that Max loves so much. “I broke up with him because I think I want to go to the Snowball with you. And make _you_ fly. I broke up with Mike because he wants to take Will to the Snowball, even though he doesn’t know it yet. I broke up with Mike, and I want to be with you like I was with him. I like you.”

Max’s lips part. Her mind goes blank. “You… I...” She stumbles over her words, trying to find something to say. “You.. Like me? Like… _Like_ like me?”

“I like like like you,” El says, blinking innocently. “Three likes. Four? More? I like like like like like–” Max cuts her off by diving forward, wrapping her arms around El and hugging her as tightly as she can. El squeaks, and there’s not even a moment’s hesitation before her arms have found their away around Max’s waist.

Her scent is chlorine and coconut and pure fucking bliss. Max doesn’t want to let go, doesn’t want the moment to ever end.

“I like you,” Max mumbles. “God, I like you so fucking much, you have no idea–”

“I have so many ideas!” El exclaims. “ _You_ have no idea.”

Max laughs, finally pulling off El so she can lean down and kiss her. Their noses bump awkwardly, and Max can feel her face flushing bright red. It takes a bit of manoeuvring, because whenever Max pulls away to try and readjust, El moves forward to try and kiss her. This awkward dance of theirs lasts for approximately ten seconds before Max puts her hands on El’s shoulders, steadying her. “I’m going to kiss you,” She says, and El nods, eyes wide and cheeks tinged pink.

Their lips finally meet.

<><><><>

The year is 1987, and Max is standing in the arcade, surrounded by her friends and her girlfriend. Her brother is waiting out in the carpark with his boyfriend, and when Max glances at the _Dig Dug_ screen and spots El's reflection, she thinks that Eleven Jane Hopper might be the best decision Max has ever made.

The number on the screen grows higher and higher.

Max reaches one million points.

She turns around and hugs El tightly as the Party erupts into cheers.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed!
> 
> Tumblr: xxlost-in-starsxx


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